“Freedom hath a thousand charms to show, that slaves how e’er contented never know.”–Cowper.

INDEPENDENCE in the full sense of the word means absolute freedom. “No man is free, who is not master of himself” and no man is master of himself who is a slave to any man or thing.

A man may be “free, white and twenty-one” and still be an abject slave. He may be a slave to a habit, a slave to fashion or a slave to his job.

Being a slave to a habit, regardless of what sort of a habit it may be, is probably the most abject form of slavery. The free man who directs his own movements is not a slave to any habit.

Slavery to fashion is one of the most disastrous forms of slavery because it not only impoverishes but always leaves unhappiness in its wake.

The man who is a slave to his job is not making the most of his job; if the job rules him, then the job is improperly filled; he is not the man for the place. The man who is boss of his job is the man who fills his position with satisfaction to himself and to his employer; he is, indeed, a free man.

Too many people are slaves to money; they spend their lives working for it and never have any. Other people accumulate money and make it work for them; they are free people.

Freedom and Independence are much misunder­stood terms. The most that Freedom and Independence can bring to any one is happiness and contentment.

Money will not buy either happiness or content­ment but the mere act of accumulating money and making it work for you creates the proper atmosphere for the development of contentment, which is the highest degree of happiness.

The right kind of a habit to form is the habit of being happy. No one is a slave to this habit, for those who have this habit are the only people who are absolutely free and wholly Independent.

Freedom is sometimes confused with license. ‘’ There are two freedoms: the false, where a man is free to do what he likes; the true, where a man is free to do what he ought.” Every person in the United States has the fullest possible measure of freedom and Independence, which is consistent with the rights of others. Added to this, every person has the opportunity to become personally free and Independent through the accumulation of money and the ultimate development of supreme happiness and contentment.

The only man who is really free is “The wise man who can command himself.” “To have freedom, is only to have that which is absolutely necessary to enable us to be what we ought to be, and to possess what we ought to possess.”

Every man has a right, and most men have the opportunity, to eventually possess enough of this world’s goods in the form of money and property to insure freedom and Independence to himself and his family. Beyond this no man need go, given health, to find happiness and contentment, freedom and Independence in the fullest meaning of the words.

“An economist, or a man who can proportion his means and his ambition, or bring the year round with expenditure which expresses his character, without embarrassing one day of his future, is already a master of life, and a freeman.”–Emerson.

“Hard workers are usually honest, industry lifts them above temptation.”–Bovee.

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