In my heart I, along with many Armenians throughout the world, honor Henry Morgenthau, Sr., the American Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913-1916. Morgenthau championed and alerted the world to the sufferings of the Turkish Armenians in 1915. A charismatic and wealthy man with a degree in law, he lived by the ethical principles he had planted as seeds during his young teenage years.
At age fourteen he took seriously his confirmation at temple and visited churches of all denominations, making abstracts of sermons by famous pulpit orators of his day, especially Congregationalists Henry Ward Beecher and Richard Storrs. Emerson, at the time, was leading American thought and young Henry Morgenthau also read the works of Horace Greeley and William Bryant. He was learning how human great men really are.
In the Morgenthau home at the time was a border, a hunchbacked Quaker doctor, who was softened instead of embittered by his affliction. He and Henry had become fast friends. Young Henry listened to the noble doctor’s long talks and loved the inspirational 1762 book by William Penn, No Cross No Crown which the doctor had given him. That book prompted young Henry to compose twenty-four rules of actions tabulating virtues he wished to acquire and vices he needed to avoid. He made a chart and every night he marked his breaches of that day. Much like an athlete who practices hours to perfect his skills, Morgenthau loved focusing and demanding his will in victory over those vices. That’s how he built his moral muscles as a young man. He titled his chart:
Tabulating virtues to be acquired and vices to be avoided:
Do not use any profane words.
Do not eat much sweet food as it darkens the mind.
Always speak the truth.
Spend nothing unnecessarily, for if you save when young, you can spend when old.
Never be idle as it will cause you to think of wrong things.
Talk little, but think much.
Study daily, or else your knowledge will not improve.
Keep your own secrets, for if you do not keep them, no one will keep them for you.
Make few promises, but if you make any, fulfill them.
Never speak evil of anyone.
Work for your employer as though it was for yourself.
Deal fairly and honestly with your fellow clerks, but be not too intimate.
Be not inquisitive.
Neither borrow nor lend if avoidable.
Trust none too much, but be not distrustful.
Be not vain, for vanity is the destruction of men.
Be grateful for the smallest favor.
Never leave for tomorrow what can be done today.
Drink no kind of intoxicating liquor nor smoke any weed.
Never play at any game of chance.
Conquer temptation though it be ever so powerful.
Keep yourself clean, as cleanliness is next to godliness.
Wonder not at the construction of man, but use your time in improving yourself.
In deciding any doubts in the meaning of above maxims, let conscience decide.
I’ve read this chart often throughout my research of this great man and when I look at the quality of the virtues he charted, I’m still astonished that a boy of fourteen would take such deep interest in developing his moral muscles in preference to playing football or searching out pretty girls in school. Those moral muscles he developed and practiced as a teenager built within him strength of an honest power that eventually led to the world’s recognition of him as a wealthy entrepreneur, a diplomat extraordinaire and a notable humanitarian.
I wonder if it is even possible in today’s celebrity driven society to encourage our young Armenian boys and girls to follow Morgenthau’s conscious preparation for living an honorable way of life and ask them to design similar charts of their own. If they did and faithfully took note of their daily breaches and tried to overcome them, could they, then, grow into the likes of a Henry Morgenthau and become great men and women with hearts filled with goodness for humanity?