The Work Ethic: Must It or Should It Return to America

By Robert Sterling Howe Ph.D

This book is an in depth discussion of the importance of the work ethic in our country. The author gives a number of positive examples of this effective use of this concept in the United States and though out the economic world. Discussion is developed about how the work ethic can be most effectively created and used both here and abroad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jan 11, 2017
• ISBN: 9781483458267

Book preview

ethic

Chapter 1

My Family’s work ethic

M Y GRANDFATHER WAS A LABORING CLASS man! Yet he was more than that! He was an amazing person with a big dream! His dreams as a working and laboring class man from Iowa were to get a job helping build Stanford University in California, but more than that he also dreamed that all nine of his kids would go to and graduate from Stanford University. Pretty big dreams but being a man of action and not just a dreamer he was gone in the blink of an eye to the great western world of California.

A short time later he called for his family and they all came. My own dad was four years old when the family left Iowa. It took them four days by coal burning train to get to the promised land! It indeed was an immigration move from within the U.S. The family carried food and water and had a wood-burning stove in their passenger car! In my father’s later years he reflected on the journey was that perhaps it wasn’t such a grand idea for it was shortly after that the family arrived that the 1906 earthquake hit with devastating force in San Francisco and at Stanford. Buildings collapsed and fires raged in San Francisco but the family survived it all!

Many years later after this event as a young person I was sitting on my grandfather’s porch. He was now in his 80’s and retired. As usual he was battling with a big yellow cat that loved to eat Grandpa’s pond fish. His defensive weapon of choice was a B.B. gun. Every time he took a shot at the cat he laughed with joy!

For the cat lovers he normally missed. Since, his eyesight was now limited by age but it was a great game that he enjoyed playing and so did a nine-year-old kid like me. After all he had worked hard on fulfilling his family dream. The family was now grown. He, that is Grandpa, had literally built their home that I was now standing in and had bought the ground for three rental units. This despite the fact that he had worked at Stanford and later as he said, "I built rich folks houses in Atherton. All of his kids were now well educated and most of them had gone to Stanford. Welcome to the power of the American work ethic at that time.

My father for example had his first job within the family complex delivering milk at age 10!!! Later on he had many other jobs of a short-term nature but all of them were quite valuable learning experiences. He was off to Palo Alto High School and finally Stanford where he was later admitted to medical school! Many of his brothers and sisters followed in his footsteps.

Now Grandpa was on the porch of his home with me and, as previously stated, in his 80’s. He had fallen off of our family home’s roof while he had been putting on a new one for us. Unfortunately in his fall he had broken his arm. As a medical doctor my dad had set his arm. Both my Dad and his brother, a practicing attorney, decided to retire their Dad and that is why my Grandpa and I were now together having this delightful time.

I was at this time, unbeknown to me, being subtly introduced to the world of the work ethic. Grandpa and I were trying to out think the fish-stealing cat. Again Grandpa often claimed he worked 12 hours a day, six days a week and Sundays off. On that special day off he would take all his kids to the candy store down in Palo Alto near Stanford University. The whole family would go on this exciting adventure. I had often wondered why my Dad seemed to like certain candies so much. It was a high entertainment time in a very busy life for him and the other family members. All of them were hard working and achievement oriented individuals.

My dad and all his siblings graduated from High School and College. This was a rarity in those days. Most of them became professionals. Eighty percent of the people in their generation did not graduate from High School.

Many of my Dad’s siblings were dentists, doctors an attorney and even engineers. Looking at my dad as an example he made the Olympics, then medical school and later became a surgeon and helped build a community hospital!

Despite all these accomplishments my dad, due to his work experiences, felt he was not smart, just that whatever he set his mind to he could do! In other words - Will Power. A wonderful, humble attitude! His wife, my mother, went to San Jose State (then San Jose Normal) and helped put my dad through medical school. They did not have scholarships in back then. Generally, this meant students were on their own for support. The family work ethic took over and the student did everything he or she could