Skepticism and Hope…Do They Exist? A little editing, and this Francis Church epic response becomes my Xmas message to the board.......
Shareholders, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Shareholders, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Shareholders, there is a Hope. It exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Hope. It would be as dreary as if there were no Shareholders. There would be no investorlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which investment fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Hope! You might as well not believe in analysts! You might have to read all the analysts on Christmas Eve to catch Hope, but even if they did not see Hope, what would that prove? Nobody sees Hope, but that is no sign that there is no Hope. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see analysts dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You may tear apart the ER and see what makes the company inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Shareholders, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Hope! Thank Goodness! It lives, and it lives forever. A thousand years from now, Shareholders, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, it will continue to make glad the heart of investors.