Scouting, Volume 68, Number 5, October 1980 Page: 55
82 p. : ill. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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IN MAY OF THIS year Los Angeles's
Century Plaza Hotel was crowded with
800 celebrities and other guests, all friends
of Scouting. Ladies wore sparkling gowns;
the men, tuxedoes. The group gathered to
recognize one of the movie industry's
best-loved figures, actor James Stewart.
Highlight of the evening staged by the Los
Angeles Area Scout Council was the pres-
entation to Stewart of the council's Dis-
tinguished Scouter Award.
Stewart who was active as a Boy Scout
in Troop 3, Indiana, Pa., re-
sponded to the tribute paid
him with these remarks:
"On my honor I will do
my best to do my duty to
God and my country and to
obey the Scout law; To help
other people at all times; To
keep myself physically
strong, mentally awake, and morally
straight."
I learned those words as a very young
man. Most of you men in this room
learned them when you were very young.
They have stayed with me through a life-
time as I know they have with you.
For many of us those words have
changed the world, and yet, the Scout
Oath has only 40 words in it. Forty words
that can make an awfully big difference in
the way the boy who becomes a man lives
out his life.
Let's take just a minute to talk about
these 40 words and what they mean to all
of us. Scouts and non-Scouts alike. "On
my honor." Honor—There's a good word
to start out with. It comes from the French,
and its origins indicate dignity, without
which none of us is a whole or complete
person.
Honor means worth, and has been
known to escalate to reverence and higher
to veneration. We honor the Lord. By
living well, we honor each other. A man
honors his flag, his family, his wife and
children. Honor. As fine and decent a
word as could be found to begin an oath.
"I will do my best to do my duty to God
and my country." Now there's a mouthful
you could talk for years about. Just listen
to some of the words contained in that
simple phrase: best, duty, God, country.
Every Scout should always try to do his
best, long after he hangs up the uniform
and goes out to shake hands with the adult
In accepting the Distinguished
Scouter Award, Jimmy Stewart had
some words to say about what the Scout
Oath means to him.
world. "Best" is what Scouts are trained to
be. It's as simple as that.
"To do my duty." Duty—that implies a
moral or legal obligation to follow a cer-
tain code of conduct. Duty means playing
by the rules, reaching deep into your own
conscience for the meaning of these rules
and giving just a little beyond and doing
just a little bit more than is expected.
"To God and my country." Duty to
God—means a lot more than saying a
prayer every time you need a favor. A lot
more. Duty to God is simply that volun-
tary gesture you must make and remake a
million times in your lifetime as a state-
ment of your recognition that there is
someone above this universe who watches
over this universe and to whom each of us
is a favorite son. Duty to God is a lifetime
thank-you note our hearts send out in
appreciation for the life that has been
loaned to us here on earth.
"And to obey the Scout Law." Obev
Scout Law—That's a pretty good combi-
nation of words. For any boy who
promises on his honor to obey the Scout
Law will do so as a Scout, as a grown-up.
as a husband, father, worker, no matter
how far he ever gets from his neckerchief.
Obeying the Scout Law isn't something we
hang up when we graduate.
"To help other people at all times."
That's sort of a combination of unselfish-
ness and love thy neighbor.
"To keep myself physically strong, men-
tally awake, and morally straight." Those
words are pretty self-ex-
planatory. To keep yourself
physically strong goes with-
out saying. It's something
natural to do for your own
good, for your family, for
your country.
"Mentally awake." That's
another thing. That means
you'll stay on the ball and carry some of
the dreams of your teens into the later
years—the arthritis years, I call them—to
remain receptive to ideas, aware of life
around you, cognizant of the blessings
showered upon you. Appreciative of the
love of God and family who surround you.
"Morally straight." Without these two
words, none of the other 38 mean much.
All the good talk in the world won't help if
you don't keep yourself morally straight.
You can make your whole life worthless
unless you grab on to these two words and
live by them. Live by them every hour of
every day of your lifetime.
I hope that's what the Scout Oath means
to every boy who's ever worn the uniform,
or wanted to wear the uniform, or who will
wear the uniform.
I happen to believe that the man who
was a Scout is a better man for it. And the
world is a better world because of this
organization called the Boy Scouts.
Thank you and God bless you all. ■
Scouting October 1980
55
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Boy Scouts of America. Scouting, Volume 68, Number 5, October 1980, periodical, October 1980; Irving, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth353641/m1/55/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Boy Scouts of America National Scouting Museum.