How Much Federal Aid Did the Pilgrims Get?

[Guest]

by Shawn McCadden

There was a time in our country and our industry’s history when success or failure was considered a personal choice. One could decide to learn to be a craftsman, work hard, earn an honest living, build self respect, and earn the respect of others in doing so.

There were no bailouts for those who made bad decisions or were blindsided because they chose to close their eyes to what was really happening around them. During those “good old days,” neighbors helped neighbors because they chose to, and because they knew that helping each other was mutually beneficial. People spent what they could afford, or worked even harder so they could afford more.

That’s the way I grew up, and it’s the same way I raised my kids. I hope my kids will provide the same example to my grandchildren some day.

I found the following text one summer day 25 or so years ago at a yard sale. Reading it sparked quite a conversation with the man selling it. He told me his mother had cut it out of a local newspaper, framed it, and hung it on her kitchen wall as long as he could remember. Before I could ask him the price, he gave it to me.

"How Much Federal Aid did the Pilgrims Get?

"They were in a depressed area. No one guaranteed them high prices for anything. Their only roads and schools were built by themselves. For security they did their own savings, or starved. All they had was character. All they did was work. All they wanted was self respect. The sum of these traits became America. But what’s going to be the sum of the traits you see today – the traits of character, or, rather, lack of it, that demand more money for less work, put security above self respect, pamper self-pitying criminals instead of punishing them, give away resources we desperately need to protect ourselves, listen to weaklings that want government to take care of them when they should take care of themselves. Long years of early-American self respect and hard work built America, but the traits you see today can destroy it in half the time.”

Today, this yard-sale find hangs in the kitchen of our summer cabin. The cabin exists because of the hard work of many of my friends and family members. These same people join us every Independence Day at the cabin to celebrate the birth of our great country. We constantly reminisce about the fun we had over the years building the cabin and sharing good times. Yesterday, on July 4, and every day, we can relax and enjoy it because we worked hard over the years to create it.

These are tough times for many. As we wrap up the celebration of the founding of our country I offer the text above not as a reminder of what our country and our industry once was, but as a reminder of what it could again be some day.