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Personal from...
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considered. This would be straying
outside tbeir field. And sometimes
their "field" shrinks into tunnel vi–
sion. This is
refusa/
to consider what
might be fact. This closes the mind to
more than is allowed by prior agree–
ment. It is, nevertheless, the "scien–
tific method." But it is
not
the way to
truth or fact.
The educational system as estab–
lished in this world perpetuates error
in the guise of truth, and encourages
continued pursuit of false values.
Few realize this evil.
To answer the question of this
"Personal"- How we carne to UN–
DERSTAND--requires at least a mini–
mal personal history. For a series of
unusual circumstances and incidents
led to this knowledge in a manner
entire/y different
from the usual way
of taking for granted what one hears,
reads, or finds others believing.
My ancestors migrated to Ameri–
ca from England witb William Penn
a hundred years before the United
States became a nation. 1 was born
and reared in Des Moines, Iowa, of
uprigbt and stable parents of solid
Quaker ancest ry. l bad drifted away
from religious interest by age 18. 1
had chosen journalism and advertis–
ing as a life profession.
From a child I had had a passion
for UNOERSTANOING. Always l
wanted to know the "WHY" about
things. When 1 was only five, my
father asserted that 1 would become
a "Philadelphia lawyer" when 1 grew
up, because 1 was always asking "so
many tomfool questions." l a lways
had to ask "wHv?" about every–
thing.
About age 16 1 became fired with
ambition to attain status in the busi–
ness world. I began to haunt the phi–
losophy, biography, and business ad–
ministration sections of the Des
Moines public library after school
hours, in extracurricular study. From
then on I spent evenings in study
while other young men were seeking
pleasures.
Early business training was in
newspapers and magazines. By age
22, bulwarked by a broad-based edu–
cation for that age, 1 became the
"idea man" in the editorial depart-
The PLAIN TRUTH May 1979
ment of America's largest-circula–
tion trade journal. This assignment
required continuous travel over the
United States, interviewing retail
merchants, industrial executives,
Chamber of Commerce secretaries. I
was searching out ideas successfully
used in business, beside experiences
in community development, social
conditions and problems. This mate–
rial provided most of tbe contents of
the magazine.
During this period 1 pioneered in
conducting surveys, based on the
law-of-average principie, obtaining,
analyzing, and classifying facts on
business and social conditions, prob–
lems and opinions from hundreds of ·
people of all classes.
Later, during the seven years [
conducted my own business in Chica–
go, and subsequently on the West
Coast, those surveys were continued
professionally. They were conducted
by personal interviews, supplemented
by thousands of written question–
naires distributed by mail. In con–
ducting tbe personal inlerviews, col–
lege graduates, specially trained for
this type of questioning, were em–
ployed. These surveys were a pio–
neering forerunner of the public–
opinion and fact-finding samplings so
widely used today, such as the Gallup
and Lou Harris polls.
Meanwhile, in addition, my busi–
ness had involved constant close per–
sonal contacts with chief executives
of major corporations in the Midwest
and the East, and also with top offi–
cers of hundreds of banks of all
sizes- from small- town banks to the
largest banks in New York, Chicago,
and otber major cities. During the
seven years in Chicago 1 attended the
ABA (American Bankers' Associa–
tion) national conventions besides
many state bankers' conventions.
In these years devoted to fact-find–
ing, 1 was being made painfully
aware of tbe troubles, the conditions
and problems of modern civilization.
1 carne to know PEOPLE- of all
classes and levels. 1 was collecting
and classifying the FACTS.
They revealed the "WHAT"- but
not the "wHY."
It became distressingly evident we
are living in a very sick world.
It
had
been a shocking disillusionment to
learn that the "successful" were sel–
dom happy. Their bank accounts
were full, but their lives were empty.
1 developed a passion to understand
why.
Not only were the common people
of affiuent America filled with un–
rest, discontent and general unhappi–
ness, but vast populations of earth's
billions of human beings were exist–
ing in the depths of wretchedness and
disease, ignorance and poverty, filth
and squalor. But WHY?
WHY all this unrest, discontent,
misery and suffering in the world?
WHY wars? WHY no peace?
lt
made
me THINK!
Jt
ought to make
every–
body
think!
Nobody had the answers. Science
had never produced them. Business,
commerce and industry were seeking
increased profits, not solutions to hu–
manity's ills. Religion had failed ut–
terly to make this a better world.
Governments, committed to better–
ing the lot of their peoples, had never
found the way. Education was not
turning out future leaders with either
UNDERSTANDING or skills in ending
strife, confusion, and suffering.
Then, in the autumn of 1926, at 34
years of age,
J
was shocked and dis–
mayed when my wife accepted a doc–
trine that was new and strange tome,
and therefore seemed like extremist
religion. 1 had always striven for
sound
balance,
in thought, and in
ways of life. She said she found this
doctrine in tbe Bible. Although 1 had
long since allowed all religious inter–
est to become dormant, as a child 1
had been reared in the traditional
Christian faith. And what she
claimed to have found, 1 knew, was
certainly contrary to my childhood
instruction. Tberefore, 1 assumed, it
had to be
contrary
to biblical teach–
ing.
But arguments failed to dissuade
her. Since we both believed marriage
was "until death do us part," divorce
offered no happy solution. Unable to
settle the dispute any other way, 1
entered upon an intensive study of
the Bible and other source materials
on the particular subject.
But I was aware that, in general,
science and "enlightened" education
had virtually relegated that "book
nobody knows," as adman Bruce
Barton had called it, to the limbo of
long-dead, forgotten superstition and
medieval ignorance. Evolution was
the current educational and scientific
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