Home Photo Gallery Classroom Documents Dear Mr. President: Along with my brethren of the clergy I wish to reply to your courteous letter asking our contribution of thought for the welfare of the nation. Conditions are much better among the people whom I serve and whom I observe I this section. Practically all of the jobless in our large congregation are again employed. The unemployment situation is much better throughout our community. There is a new spirit of optimism and I feel with others that perhaps the depression conditions are passing. Some kind of an old age pension is becoming absolutely necessary. Medical science is enabling people to live twenty years longer than they did a century ago. The machine age is creating technological unemployment which makes it impossible seemingly for all people to work. The old people are the ones who are squeezed out first because they are the least desirable of the workers. I find that it is hard for my people who are past fifty years of age to find reemployment if they are jarred loose from the economic order. Something must be done to meet this actuality. The Townsend Plan is fantastic and impossible. I bid you God-speed in the working out of a workable plan. Economic security must be achieved. Our present system of alternate cycles of prosperity and depression is demoralizing to the whole social order and tragic for the vast area of our population who do not have large enough income to develop a savings account. As to the details of political policy which will solve these problems, my personal opinion is that the clergy ought to keep out. We can report conditions and proclaim ideals but we are not living close enough to the tangled problems of actual business and government to see just how the technical part of the solution shall be worked out. I take it to be a matter of eternal truth and wisdom that a people becomes great, prosperous and happy by the pursuit of certain principles and standards: hard work, thrift, clear thinking, righteous living and faith- faith in God, in their fellow men and themselves. These are the foundations which the nation must keep firmly beneath it. I am doing my best in my own little corner to keep such foundations strong. The drinking of intoxicating liquor, the prevalence of divorce, low standards of morality and the gambling spirit are creating havoc throughout the nation. Your exalted position and wide spread popularity give you a unique opportunity to be a great factor in leading us out of these evils. They are more dangerous by far to the nation than adverse trade balances or economic depressions. In fact they are the basic cause of economic evils. We are grateful to you for your stand for peace. My people and I are praying for your and the other leaders of the nation that you may be able to pilot the ship of state through these troubled waters of world disturbance and keep us out of war. My humble opinion is, as well as the opinion of my brethren, that the only way to keep out of war is to see that America plays the game wisely and consistently with the peacemakers of the world, and to see to it that not one single dollar of blood money comes into our pockets by trading upon the sins and misfortunes of warring nations. God grant that America may not defeat the noble purpose of the League of Nations' sanctions against Italy by allowing our commercial interests to break the embargo which those sanctions impose. Wishing you health, joy and good success in the high office which has been give you, I am Cordially and respectfully,
Jesse H. Baird, Pastor
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