What if we saw the world as good? If we found out that all people are truly one? Imagine if we said no one, not one of us, should be unloved but loved as we love our own family, or ourselves? As an Owl who has spent a lifetime observing the world, I’ve come to the conclusion that people could really do this, if we wanted to. I include myself, even though I’m an Owl, because nature seems to demand that we either hang together or die in selfishness.

We live in a little county in Alabama. Yet, events around the world affect us as they never have before. A gigantic world effort brought yet another disease under control. Yet, our world is not out of the woods yet. What if we took all the confiscated yachts of Russian billionaires and made them hospital ships? These massive vessels could be sent around the world to administer help, vaccines, and medical training everywhere. What if we made education free to those who qualify? We could train the doctors, the scientists, and the engineers who could, for instance, make the deserts bloom? It took decisive action by Teddy Roosevelt to cut sailing time from our east to west coasts by 8,000 miles when he built the Panama Canal. Why not sponsor a world water project, where the finest minds of the world work to desalinate water? Our most precious resource, water, requires attention in this time of drought in so many places. Such mighty efforts on behalf of our world could bring a stop to wars if we made the hope for a better world a reality. We spend money beyond belief on weaponry. But what if we took even some of that and devoted it to road construction? We could bring whole populations together, and allow people to reach, live in, and make bountiful areas of the world never before inhabited.

Researchers have found ways to develop energy efficient vehicles. Why not allocate efforts which award inventors who could perhaps develop wonderous batteries, self-generating energy from waste in landfills, and other ideas only on drawing boards? These ideas exist today. They could be commonplace if we only decided to pursue them. Medical efforts to bring clean water and filter the world’s air could be real. Commercially viable transportation for all of us can happen if we think we all are one family.

We don’t need a world governed by fear, by men without a heart for others. Anyone who makes us think of “us” versus “them” is leading us astray. Let’s remember perhaps the greatest speech in movie history, when Charlie Chaplain, in “The Great Dictator” said:

“I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone – if possible – Jew, Gentile – black man – white.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness – not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want.

Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost…

The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men – cries out for universal brotherhood – for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world – millions of despairing men, women, and little children – victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me, I say – do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed – the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish.

Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes – men who despise you – enslave you – who regiment your lives – tell you what to do – what to think and what to feel! Who drill you, diet you, treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men – machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate – the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!”

In the 17th chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” – not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power – the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.

Then, in the name of democracy, let us use that power; let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world – a decent world that will give men a chance to work – that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfill that promise. They never will!

Dictators free themselves, but they enslave the people. Now let us fight to fulfill that promise! Let us fight to free the world – to do away with national barriers – to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. “Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!”