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Author : Haberman Frederick
Title : Tracing our Ancestors Were they descendants of apes or of Adam ?
Year : 1934

Link download : Haberman_Frederick_-_Tracing_our_Ancestors.zip

At times like the present, when many realize that we are living in a period of transition from the old order into a new and when everybody is wondering where we are going to under the New Deal, it may seem out of place, at first thought,- to write a book dealing with our ancestors and where they originated; yet it will be found that the question of our origin is also intimately connected with our destiny. A wanderer who has no recollection of where he came from has a poor chance of reaching his destination. And so it seems to b2 the way with our people. That America had lost her way our nation began to realize m the spring of 1930. Ever since then our people have been wandering in circles, trying to find a way out of the Depression that had effected the whole world, but us more than any other nation. Why in our country, the richest in the world, with untold wealth of soil, mines, and streams, one-third of our people should be destitute we could not understand. Hitherto we had been the leaders in material progress and suddenly that progress stopped and the Crisis affected us more than any other civilized nation. America was puzzled. With the coming of President Roosevelt a great renaissance began m our land. Under his energetic leadership reform measures have been instituted, which, whether they will bring the hoped-for results or not, are radically different in principle from the old established form of economics and statecraft. Hitherto America has been the "land of the free," where each individual was free to do his best or his worst with the least interference from the government. But with the coming of the New Deal and its supervision of all industries, partnership with the farmers, N. R. A. codes, demetallization of our currency, and billions of Federal money for loans and for starting work for the jobless, thinking people are beginning to see that we are standing on the threshold of a New Era; and the eyes of the world are turned toward America. Since the crisis made itself really felt in the sprmg of 1930 every established theory of philosophy, economics, and even of general education has been badly shaken, and many have been upset. Very few of the old ideas seem to work any more, not even the practice of working hard and saVIng up. Men who had worked for years and invested their savings for a rainy day found their savings swept away by the Deluge. Even our educators have learned to see that the very efficiency which they drilled into their students only precipitated the Crisis. The plight of our college graduates is pitiful. All the education and science which they acquired through years of study and training the world has no use for or at least no monetary reward for. Over a million holders of college degrees are jobless. All their hopes and dreams of becoming Doctors, Lawyers, Architects, Engineers, or Nurses seem to be ended the moment they receive their diplomas; and they, as well as the students still in the colleges, are wondering what they really strove and studied for. Material Progress and Evolution have been made the religion of our colleges; yet both of them seem to be out of gear. Surely the present impasse in which our civilization finds itself ought to raise serious questions in the minds of our educators and leaders, whether our whole modern philosophy of life, based upon the theory of orgamc evolution, has not been founded upon the wrong premises. After a century of scientific progress and striving for the material things of life, an ever-increasing number of our population found that the things they strove for were farther from their grasp than ever. After centuries of rapidly increasing rationalism and materialism and selfish striving, the present crisis has forced upon millions of our people and upon our New Administration the necessity of going back to the principles which were taught by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount, which are the principles of His Kingdom, expressed in the single dictum, "Love thy neighbor as thyself." It is a striking picture of the changing spmt of our times that Mr. P. W. Wilson in his article, "Christ's Precepts in the New Deal," in the January Review of Reviews should say of Christ: "The whole of what has been called His plan of salvation, His organization of rescue, His liberations and development of abundance, is founded upon reciprocity : live in the life of others, the life that is love. Mankind is still staggered by this omnipotent paradox, and rebels against it. But we are learning by hard experience that there is no other way of living at all unless we live for others. It is the rule of the family. It must become the rule of society and of nations." · Such sentiment, expressed in a leading American monthly devoted primarily to political and business affairs, and uttered on many occasions by President Roosevelt and members of his Administration, and reechoed in the hearts of millions of disappointed people in our land, means the greatest moral revolution in the history of civilization and shows that we are standing on the threshold of a New Era. America which started a Revolution 1 60 years ago is starting a still greater one today. For almost a hundred years the tenets of an organic evolution have been taught in our colleges at the expense of the spiritual teachings of our Bible, and now, after a hundred years of rationalism and apparent failure, our leaders are compelled to go back to the Old Book and its statements. We are living in a period of startling changes and all the signs indicate that still greater changes are ahead of us. Many of our established theories have been shaken and our philosophers and intellectuals are greatly confused. For ages they have tried to explain a Godless universe and the evolution of man from the lower forms of life, as contrary to the teachings of Genesis. Hundreds of theories have been postulated, all of them different but every one of them ignoring the statements of Scripture. The latter themselves have been subjected to severe criticism, particularly the Old Testament; yet its historicity is being verified by the discoveries of archaeology every day, as this volume will sho,v. A nd now \Vhen all of men's conceptions and philosophies have been tried and found wanting, our statesmen are turning to the pages of the Bible for guidance and help. That Old Book has outlasted the wrecks of time; it is still the best seller and the most up ... to ... date of all books. When scenes are changing c;o rapidly today, its prophecies are always ahead of the events, as students of the Bible are aware. The Words of its Divine Author and His Precepts alone can solve the problems perplexed humanity is facing and will face until they are heeded. A great a wakening has begun among our race and a still greater one is yet to comr of Evolution in the eyes pf our intellectuals, but those good people have been badly mistaken in many things lately and may be mistaken again. They are very much disappointed today that our American prosperity and leadership has so abruptly terminated , but they have never concerned themselves with the cause of that prosperity and the reasons for the leadership of our race the so ... called Anglo ... Saxon race. In the answer to these questions may also lie the solution to many of our present problems. As I said to begin with: A wanderer who has no recollection of where he came from has a poor chance of reaching his destination. Therefore, let us inquire into the origin of our race. St. Petersburg, Florida, January, 19 34. - F. H. ...