God’s Will and the Ocean
True Father Speaks on: Why We Go Tuna Fishing, page 186-189
August 31, 1983, Gloucester

Why We Go Tuna Fishing

August 31, 1983, Gloucester

WELL, WITHOUT a doubt, everyone now knows that the Moonies have entered the fishing industry. One thing which has happened as a result of our fishing is that the fishermen can see exactly what kind of people we are. We go out in every kind of weather, rain or shine. We even have women fishing, doing just as well as the men, sometimes better than the men. The fishermen of Gloucester can't help but see that.

Surely, they have been talking about it, so the news traveled, even to the city officials, the mayor included. They know what kind of transition has taken place in the last ten years since I first came here in 1974. At that time, the typical daily working hours of the tuna fishermen went something like this: around ten o'clock in the morning they'd get out on the sea, and then come back around two o'clock in the afternoon, with or without the tuna.

At that time, there was no price for the tuna. If they caught a tuna, they'd come back to the docks, take a picture standing next to it, and then leave the fish behind. It was only five cents per pound, so it wasn't even worth the effort to try and sell it. Sometimes, the fish would just lie there on the dock until it rotted.

The fishermen also remember how the price of tuna went up every year. Just by ten to fifteen to twenty-five cents a year, or less. The price never increased by any great amount from year to year. However, this year, the price came up to close to $5.00 per pound. This trend will continue and they know it; it's almost a fact. They also realize that our movement has had an impact on this trend.

If we can catch 200 tuna at the price of $5.00 per pound, we will break even, or even do better than that. We won't have to suffer this loss that we now take every year. Please understand that there is a vision guiding our effort; we will not end up every year like this. In the next few years, we will go beyond the loss column. Don't have faith in the results before you. Have faith in the process. We are going towards a goal. Have faith in that.

Establishing the Tradition

We can suffer our losses year after year until we finally come to the gaining point, but other people cannot do that. If they lose out one or two years, they simply quit. One thing we never do is quit. That is truly our secret. Once this process reaches a certain point, we will begin to gain rather than suffer loss. When that day comes, and that day will surely come, people will establish the undisputed conclusion that as far as tuna goes, Reverend Moon is the "king of all kings."

We also know that we are the ones who value our traditions. Our tradition is always this: first to create a solid foundation. No church, no business, no family or person can be successful without a solid foundation. We know that. Even now, they begin to see it, but not as clearly as we would hope. However, in a few years, they will see very clearly what I am doing and they will know I am building up a tradition so that the fishing industry will not go up and down every year, but go solidly upward, year after year. Clearly they will begin to see that this effort is not solely for our own profit.

America has only one last frontier. That is the fishing industry. There is enormous potential in the fishing industry. Everyone knows that. 70% of the major fishing grounds in the entire world are in America. The other 30% is shared by Norway, Japan and all the other sea-going countries. You can imagine what 70% of the entire world's catch could be. It's staggering to the imagination how much that could be, if you think in terms of pounds and sizes of catch. That ocean, of which 70% belongs to America, is more than twice the size of the land we now live on. The ocean occupies two-thirds of the globe and land occupies only one-third of the earth's surface. The potential catch from the ocean produces far more protein than we could ever bring from the land. Fish, if you catch them wisely, are consistently there from year to year. If you take something out of the earth, such as oil, when you are done with it, there is nothing left. On the other hand, if you have the consciousness of harvesting fish, that industry can go on without ever stopping.

Does the average American really care about this? Not so much. They don't think about this and they don't think about what it means for the future. No American at all would ever dream that the next generation after Reverend Moon will be fishermen, but you will be, and so will be the next generation after that, and after that. Generation after generation we will become better and better fishermen. Why would we want to do that? For the sake of mankind, that is why.

Americans are not thinking like that. They are thinking, "Well, I will live this hard life, but I don't want to encourage my children to sacrifice like this." Some even stop their children from going to the ocean. Why? Because it is a hard way of living and the income is not that great. On the contrary, I am thinking of how to raise up these very same fishermen. After all, we are going into the same thing for which they have already lived all their life. We will embrace them and take care of them. As fast as we grow, we will bring them along with us.

This fishing industry is an important and vital industry, and it will become even more so in the future. Even though our church members may find something they have to attend to somewhere else, we have to make sure that American fishermen inherit the tradition and spirit of making a solid foundation from us. And they must carry on this vision, even if we are absent from it for a time.

People who are now fishing cannot find satisfaction in their work, unless they can get at least 50% more from their income through fishing than any job they might take on land. This includes working on shore or on a dock with boats. Why? On land, you can plan what you are going to do, even though it rains or the weather is difficult. But on the ocean, you cannot plan like that. There are some days, even if you are ready to work, you cannot go out. The weather simply prevents you. Therefore, they cannot always depend on their income to be steady. That is, you have to gain at least 50% more of an income than if you worked the same amount of time on the land, in order to have an equal amount of income in the long run. They have to take in the factor of losing days due to hard weather. 

However, the fact is that, in these times, fishermen put in the same amount of effort which others put in on the land, but often receive up to 50% less. Sometimes more, but usually less. The result is that most American fishermen eventually choose to work on land the first chance they get something on land that is a little bit better than fishing. So, whoever will make this fishing industry viable has to manage some key areas.

The first is, how to sustain the working hours. We have to get up earlier than normal and to stay out as long as possible before returning. Others are working only one day, but we have to work two days to make up for our inexperience. The second is technique. Since we have to compensate for the long hours that we put in, we have to find the better method, the faster method to bring in the fish. We have to research and study and experiment. We have to establish a new pattern of fishing. We have to study with seriousness several points about fishing. We have to study about the bait, the lines, how to use the lines and how to use the boat in different waters. All these things have to be studied and carried out. We have to think deeply about these things, and plan each area very thoroughly.