Bethlen Naptár, 1949 (Ligonier)
Respect for ideals
BETHLEN NAPTÁR 71 The young scientist, shocked by the grim picture, set a noble ideal before him: Michigan’s death rate must be lowered! He plunged into work. It was a heart-rending struggle. He himself was stricken by cancer and, in order to be able to carry on his work, he had to submit to painfully drastic cures. In twenty years the state’s diphtheria death rate was reduced from 950 in 1919 to about 40. The death rate from whooping cough sank from 529 in 1920 to 45 in 1945. Pneumonia death rate, in the same period, was cut in half, and the death rate from other death-dealing diseases was likewise reduced. According to a statement of one of the most distinguished physicians of the state, “Cy Young saved more lives during those twenty-five years than all the rest of Michigan’s doctors put together.” This great scientist who, all through his life, lived on a ridiculously small salary, claimed nothing for himself. One of his life maxims was that one can achieve everything if he is willing to let others take the credit for it. He surrounded himself by a staff of like-minded workers, to whom he explained that their life work was to lower Michigan’s death rate, and in the twenty-five years of his public service only one of his key men left his service for the higher pay that was offered to him. You can hardly find deserters in an army which is led by noble ideals, because armies led by noble ideals are out to win their battles, whatever the cost to them, and they know that it is the ideals burning in their hearts and not the money that they receive, that make them heroes. Men of the stamp of this fine scientist are seldom mentioned during conversations in everday life. Are they forgotten? They may be forgotten for a while, but not forever. We all know that when the Master of the final accounting will appear, he will call them by their names, and will give them a share in His glory: Come ye, blessed of my Father, and inherit the kingdom, for I was sick and ye visited me. (Mt. 25:34,36.) Among the very last books which reached me in Hungary before the outbreak of the war shut off all communication, there was one, the reading of which had given me unusual pleasure. This book which made the name of its author known and loved all over the world, has been filmed, and is one of the best pictures ever made in this country. The title of the book is “Life with Father”, by Clarence Day. I have learned since then that this book was written by a man hopelessly paralyzed by illness. He had no ambition to become a writer. It was a friendly physician who, in order to divert his thoughts from brooding over his illness, suggested to him to turn to writing. The suggestion, the implanting of an ideal in a sickened
