It's A Wonderful Life
Last night, my daughter and I watched this perennial classic, she for the first time. As I watched, it struck me that for a movie made in the late forties, this movie has an extremely timely message for today's world. Let's look at this quote for an example of what I'm talking about:
Just a minute - just a minute. Now, hold on, Mr. Potter. You're right when you say my father was no businessman. I know that. Why he ever started this cheap, penny-ante Building and Loan, I'll never know. But neither you nor anyone else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was - why, in the twenty-five years since he and Uncle Billy started this thing, he never once thought of himself. Isn't that right, Uncle Billy? He didn't save enough money to send Harry to school, let alone me. But he did help a few people get out of your slums, Mr. Potter, and what's wrong with that? Why - here, you're all businessmen here. Doesn't it make them better citizens? Doesn't it make them better customers? You - you said - what'd you say a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even ought to think of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what? Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they're so old and broken down that they... Do you know how long it takes a working man to save five thousand dollars? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about... they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn't think so. People were human beings to him. But to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they're cattle. Well, in my book he died a much richer man than you'll ever be.
Wow. Apply that to a lot of the big shots making big money running big things in this country and you'll see what I mean.
But watching this movie, I was reminded of a day way back in the eighties, when I read a little article written by none other than Jimmy Stewart in one of my mom's Guideposts magazines. I've never really cared much for the magazine itself, but even as a teenager I couldn't help but be touched by the words in this article.
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