(I wish to again thank all the customers that have expressed appreciation  for my recent articles.  It has proven to be a conduit for me to voice and share my personal thoughts on automotive and other issues).

    

Like all of you, I to will never forget September 11, 2001. I was walking out into the main driveway when I was told of the first plane crash. Since that time I have been glued to the daily news broadcasts. Almost two weeks have past and I realize that I must begin to work back towards my normal routine. As I write this from inside my home I can see our flag dancing lightly in the evening breeze outside the front window. I have always flown the American flag in the summer months but it sure seems to have a more prominent meaning now. I don't think this country has ever seen a greater display of American flags. One has to wonder what the real reason is for these attacks. Is it the sacred ground we are claimed to have violated? Is it the commands of another world dictator being carried out like history has shown in the past? Could it be that others are envious of what a wonderful and successful country our forefathers have established and of which we now enjoy? After all, freedom is a very powerful thing. I recently was motivated to again read the Declaration of Independence. It has been a while since I read this in school but the first line of the second paragraph is still as powerful as it was over 200 years ago:  

"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..." 

When that scroll was unrolled and read to the King you can bet your boots that he was not very happy. Perhaps this notion still upsets some other people throughout the globe. You might say these attacks on our country could be a Penalty of Leadership. Penalty of Leadership, you ask? The Penalty of Leadership is the title of a Cadillac advertisement that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, on January 2, 1915. (For those of you that have ever owned a Cadillac, it has been in the beginning of their owners manuals for years). It is a very powerful writing that was written for Cadillac by Theodore F. MacManus. To me, in some sense, this writing reflects how life can be full of people that want to tear down and beat at the walls of success. The advertisement follows: 
 

Penalty of Leadership. 
 
 "In every field of endeavor, he that is first must perpetually live in the white light of publicity. Whether the leadership be vested in a man or a manufactured product, emulation and envy are ever at work. In art, in literature, in music, in industry, the reward and the punishment are always the same. The reward is widespread recognition; the punishment, fierce denial and detraction. When a man's work becomes a standard for the whole world, it also becomes a target for the shafts of the envious few. If his work be merely mediocre, he will be left severely alone - if he achieve a masterpiece, it will set a million tongues a-wagging. Jealousy does not protrude its forked tongue at the artist who produces a common-place painting. Whatsoever you write, paint, play, sing or build, no one will strive to surpass or to slander you, unless your work be stamped with the seal of genius. Long, long after a great work or a good work as been done, those who are disappointed or envious continue to cry out that it cannot be done. Spiteful little voices in the domain of art were raised against our own Whistler as a mountebank, long after the big world had acclaimed him its greatest artistic genius. Multitudes flocked to Bayreuth to worship at the musical shrine of Wagner, while a little group of those whom he had dethroned and displaced, argued angrily that he was no musician at all. The little world continued to protest that Fulton could never build a steamboat, while the big world flocked to the river banks to see his boat steam by. The leader is assailed because he is a leader, and the effort to equal him is merely added proof of that leadership. Failing to equal or to excel, the follower seeks to depreciate and to destroy ­ but only confirms once more the superiority of that which he strives to supplant. There is nothing new in this. It is as old as the world and as old as the human passions ­ envy, fear, greed, ambition and the desire to surpass. And it all avails nothing. If the leader truly leads, he remains ­ the leader. Master-poet, master-painter, master-workman, each in his turn is assailed and each holds his laurels through the ages. That which is good or great makes itself known, no matter how loud the clamor of denial. That which deserves to live - lives".