FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION I do not believe in a word that you say, but I will defend with my life, if need be, your right to say it.-FRANCOIS VOLTAIRE (1759). No matter whose the lips that would speak, they must be free and ungagged. Let us believe that the whole of truth can never do harm to the whole of virtue; and remember that in order to get the whole of truth you must allow every man, right or wrong, freely to utter his conscience, and protect him in so doing. Entire unshackled freedom for every man's life, no matter what his doctrine-the safety of free discussion, no matter how wide its range. The community which dares not protect its humblest and most hated member in the free utterance of his opinions, no matter how false or hateful, is only a gang of slaves. If there is anything in the universe that can't stand discussion, let it crack.-WENDELL PHILLIPS (1855). It is more dangerous to shut people's mouths than to stop the waters of a river. To stop the progress of a river means to force it to expand and thus do more harm than if it had been allowed to take its natural course. Such is the case with people. If you want to prevent the damage threatening from the inundation of a river, you have to lead it into a proper bed which will hold all of its waters; if you want to make an impression on the people, let them have perfect liberty of speech.-A CHINESE PHILOSOPHER (2000 B. C.). Ideas are always liveliest when attempts are made to suppress them. The very worst way to suppress an idea is to attempt to suppress it. For, if an idea is true, you can't suppress it, and if it is false it does not need to be suppressed-it will suppress itself. If we all agree finally and for good, talking would be nonsense. But because we disagree, talking is the part of wisdom.-HORACE TRAUBEL. THE LAW True law recognizes that man is sacred to man, that the degradation of any man is an assault upon mankind. It is the practical application of the doctrine of human brotherhood. There is no place in true law for racial pride, religious bigotry, or claims of superiority. Pride and bigotry are born only in inferior minds, minds that cannot grasp the universality and the beauty of the law. Men of strength and courage, men who love the law arrogate to themselves no superiority. They take pride only in their equality. Since the aim of the law is justice, the general good and common weal, no man, no party, no faction, no nation can have interests which transcend the law. The blessings which flow from the common weal are greater than any gains from selfish efforts. The history of the United States is a living refutation of the dictators' assertions that democracy's faith in law has failed. Here men of all races, colors and creeds have enjoyed freedom of trade, freedom of conscience, freedom of expression and a common wealth and level of life never before attained. What has been done in the United States can be done in all the world. The blessings of law which we enjoy we offer to share with all who accept the law. By sharing those blessings with others we increase them for ourselves. But the coordination of effort to that end cannot be based upon race or color or militarism. The bond of unity must be the law.— ROBERT N. WILKIN, Judge, United States District Court, Northern District of Ohio. (Excerpt from address delivered over WHK, March 19, 1942.) FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION You tell me that law is above freedom of utterance, and I reply that you can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people—and, alas, their folly with it. But, if there is freedom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive. That is the history of the race. It is the proof of man's kinship with God. You say that freedom of utterance is not for the time of stress, and I reply with the sad truth that only in time of stress is freedom of utterance in danger. No one questions it in calm days, because it is not needed. And the reverse is true also: only when free utterance is suppressed is it needed, and when it is needed it is most vital to justice. Peace is good. But if you are interested in peace through force and without free discussion—that is to say, free utterance decently and in order your interest in justice is slight. And peace without justice is tyranny, no matter how you may sugar-coat it with expediency. This State today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because in the end suppression leads to violence; indeed, is the child of suppression. Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace, and whoever tramples upon the plea for justice, temperately made in the name of peace, only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood. When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line. So, dear friend, put fear out of your heart. This Nation will survive, this State will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold-by voice, by posted card, by letter or by press. Reason never has failed men. Only force and oppression have made the wrecks in the world. WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE (1922). (The Governor of a state threatened William Allen White with jail for his biting editorial expressions on the post-war railroad strike. Mr. White replied with a classic editorial entitled, "To An Anxious Friend." This ringing editorial in behalf of the Freedom of the Press was reprinted all over the United States and won for Mr. White the coveted Pulitzer Prize established by Joseph Pulitzer, a foreign-born American from Hungary, who founded the widely-known newspaper, The New York World; who gave $1,000,000 to Columbia University for the first school of journalism in America; who raised funds to bring the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty to America and place it at the entrance of New York Harbor, and who always dedicated his journalistic talent to the cause of the people.) THE POOR VOTER ON ELECTION DAY The proudest now is but my peer, Today, alike are great and small, Who serves today upon the list And sleekest broadcloth counts no more Today let pomp and vain pretence The wide world has not wealth to buy While there's a grief to seek redress, Where weighs our living manhood less A wrong to sweep away, Up! clouted knee and ragged coat! A man's a man today! JOHN GREENLeaf Whittier. Suggestions for Chapter 11 ADDRESSES ADDRESS TO NEW CITIZENS 1 1 WOODROW WILSON, Twenty-seventh President of the United States This is the only country in the world which experiences this constant and repeated rebirth. Other countries depend upon the multiplication of their own native people. This country is constantly drinking strength out of new sources by the voluntary association with it of great bodies of strong men and forward-looking women out of other lands. And so by the gift of the free will of independent people it is being constantly renewed from generation to generation by the same process by which it was originally created. * * You have just taken an oath of allegiance to the United States. Of allegiance to whom? Of allegiance to no one, unless it be God-certainly not of allegiance to those who temporarily represent this great Government. You have taken an oath of allegiance to a great ideal, to a great body of principles, to a great hope of the human race. You have said, "We are going to America not only to earn a living, not only to seek the things which it was more difficult to obtain where we were born, but to help forward the great enterprises of the human spirit-to let men know that everywhere in the world there are men who will cross strange oceans and go where a speech is spoken which is alien to them if they can but satisfy their quest for what their spirits crave; knowing that whatever the speech there is but one longing and utterance of the human heart, and that is for liberty and justice." And while you bring all countries with you, you come with a purpose of leaving all other countries behind you bringing what is best of their spirit, but not looking over your shoulders and seeking to perpetuate what you intended to leave behind in them. * My urgent advice to you would be, not only always to think first of America, but always, also, to think first of humanity. America was created to unite mankind by those passions which lift and not by the passions which separate and debase. *** We came to America, either ourselves or in the persons of our ancestors, to better the ideals of men, * * * * * 1 Excerpts from an address to 5,000 newly naturalized citizens at proceedings of the naturalization reception, held at Philadelphia, Pa., May 10, 1915. to make them see finer things than they had seen before, to get rid of the things that divide and to make sure of the things that unite. * * * I was born in America. You dreamed dreams of what America was to be, and I hope you brought the dreams with you. No man that does not see visions will ever realize any high hope or undertake any high enterprise. Just because you brought dreams with you, America is more likely to realize dreams such as you brought. You are enriching us if you came expecting us to be better than we are. A nation that is not constantly renewed out of new sources is apt to have the narrowness and prejudice of a family; whereas, America must have this consciousness, that on all sides it touches elbows and touches hearts with all the nations of mankind. * You have come into this great Nation voluntarily seeking something that we have to give, and all that we have to give is this: We cannot exempt you from work. No man is exempt from work anywhere in the world. We cannot exempt you from the strife and the heartbreaking burden of the struggle of the day-that is common to mankind everywhere; we cannot exempt you from the loads that you must carry. We can only make them light by the spirit in which they are carried. That is the spirit of hope, it is the spirit of liberty, it is the spirit of justice. THE DEMOCRATIC WAY OF LIFE 2 ROBERT N. WILKIN, Judge, United States District Court, Northern District of Ohio The enthusiasm of naturalized citizens for citizenship, their gratitude for its rights and privileges, stand in marked contrast to the indifference of some people who acquired their citizenship by birth. Too often what is easily acquired is little valued. This program to commemorate the adoption of our Constitution has allowed time for this ceremony in order that native citizens might be impressed by the fact that citizenship is anxiously sought by those who did not acquire it by merely being born here. As we rejoice with new citizens over their realization, we gain a deeper sense of gratitude for the gift of our forebears. There probably never was a time when citizenship in our country was more appreciated or its rights more openly challenged in the world. Such appreciation today arises from the very fact that such rights are so chal 'Excerpts from address to naturalized citizens at Cleveland, Ohio, Sept. 17, 1940. |