Right or Success | AdventAI

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 29, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 42.

Right or Success.

The present political struggle through which the United States is passing has a great influence in the development of character. There are some who desire to be right. They may be wrong in their conclusions through various reasons,—misinformation and otherwise; but they have a desire to be right, and what they do, to do it because it is right. There are others that desire success. The spirit that seems to govern them is that expressed by a politician in days gone by, in a toast, "My country, may she always be right; but right or wrong, my country." The same principle leads many to say, "My party, may it always be right; but right or wrong, my party."

It recalls an expression of Lord Melbourne, in a cabinet meeting in the early days of Queen Victoria. Melbourne was then prime minister. The meeting threatened to break up in confusion. He put his back to the door, and in a cynical way said: "Gentlemen, we can tell the House the truth, or we can tell it a lie. I don't care which. All I insist on is that we shall all tell the same lie, and that you shall not leave the room until it is settled what it is to be." And so it is with many political conventions; it is not the essential thing in the minds of many whether the convention is right, or whether it is wrong, but that everybody shall know what it is and observe it. There is one thing that is above all this, and that is to be right, to have a conscience void of offense, to submit all political parties and all political programs, and for that matter all religious parties and programs, to the matter of eternal right, and stand with the right; for he that stands with the right stands with God, and is bound to triumph in God's time.