And now, This I Believe, the living philosophies of thoughtful men and women, presented in the hope they may strengthen your beliefs so that your life may be richer, fuller, happier. Here is Edward R. Murrow.

This I Believe. Catherine R. Dobbs is a former state senator of Ohio. She is widely known throughout her state, not only for her work on numerous senate committees, but also as an author and lecturer. One of her favorite subjects for study is adventurous history, having devoted many years to exploring the background and origin of historical and documentary research. However, Catherine Dobbs lives very much in the present.

My life has been a series of lessons in tests and rewards: Doing unto others as I would have others do unto me.

Realizing that I am the maker and breaker of myself by virtue of the thoughts I choose to encourage. My mind being the master weaver, both of the inner garment of character and the outer garment of circumstance. My acts and actions producing the blossoms of thoughts, constructive or destructive.

I believe the conditions under which I live change and are different, but the problems remain the same. The very fact that conditions have changed so greatly, with the vast speed of times and the many interpretations of things being done, make it supremely important for me to try and understand the basic meaning of conditions on things and people. For there is a supreme law—nature’s law—and nature’s God.

This unseen greatness of the divine providence, I cannot ignore. I believe so deeply within my heart that the Golden Rule is the master teacher. It has an unseen force of greatness that is too often forgotten. I am pathetically human—loyalty is the biggest word in my language. There will always be a mystery in our world why we behave like human beings. The good Lord made it so. He made us in His image and we are all His children, but we must live together.

I believe it takes a very stubborn faith in doing unto others as I would have others do unto me. For human nature can be so kind and so cruel, so true and then so treacherous, so intelligent and so ignorant. People can love so beautifully and hate so bitterly. They can be so fair and then so false. People are not an easy matter to live with and understand.

I’ve had my baptism under fire throughout my life and the living of it. I am aware that common sense is a major factor in serving and living with people. Yes, I’ve had my share of abuse, even unkind speech. I believe the Golden Rule has restrained my tongue from hurling hard words and names at others. It has taught me to use a more lovable and respectful understanding. It has given me a tolerance, a humility, a courage, and a dignity, in conquering my own struggling conflicts for a better life—not only for myself, but with others.

It is not my intention to pretend to wear any other character than that of a woman who believes profoundly in the spirit, and the reciprocity, and in the principles of a great nation based on freedoms, with a firm reliance on the protection of

the divine providence. I believe in living honestly every day in the week, and not just on Sundays. Challenge, I find, is a very helpful condition in our progressive world, even though the chords and discords of a back-and-forth rhythm appear every day, in a mini-mixture of emotions within people themselves. It has taught me that freedom is not the creation of man. It is of divine origin.

I believe the Golden Rule is stamped permanently in the laws of the world, that men and women are free, that liberty and the rights of human personality came from God himself. They are as much the birthright of human beings as the air, the sunrise, and the soil underfoot.

Those were the beliefs of Catherine R. Dobbs, a resident of Barberton, Ohio.