Graham guardian., 1909-07-23
JULY %, 1909.
WHAT IS REAL FREEDOM?

President Taft the other day, at
Connecticut town, made speech on
THE Growth of Freedom. That
is broad subject. By nature, man
in savage state believes in free
dom, save when tribal customs limit
him in small way. But that is
not the freedom that enlightened
men desire. 1t is but license, and
does not restrict his desires in the
least. He does not hesitate at all
to kill an enemy, nor to impose
shameful wrongs and burdens upon
his own family. In this country
several thousand men land every
year from foreign countries who
have no enlightened idea of real
freedom as is seen in the way they
carry out the feuds of the old world
on this soil. They do not under
stand in its highest sense, neither
do many native Americans, what en-
lightened freedom really means.
The peace of society makes it i'm
perative that a man must, for the
good of the whole, surrender GER
tain primitive rights which in bar
barous state were his. He must,
for instance. wear clothing. he must
respects his neighbor's rights; that
is, he must subject himself to the
laws which society has established
for its own protection, and when he
believes a law is wrong, still he
must obey it until it can be repealed
or amended in the prescribed way.
The very greatest glory of Eng
land is that her people were strong
enough while yet half savages, to
subdue themselves, to frame and
enforce a code which brought order
and law to the State, which, while
permitting every man to do any
thing he pleased, so long as he did
not trench upon the rights of his
fellow-men, at the same time bound
him to obey the laws he himself had
helped to create, and punished him
if he violated them.
We call ours free country, and
so it is, but at the same time there
are thousands of our countrymen
who do not enough respect the laws
of their country. They are ready
at word to take the laws into
their own hands and appeal to the
old, brutal law of might for judg-
ment.
In this respect there has been
little growth of freedom" in our
country for hundred years past.
But in another sense there has
been a great growth. 1t is that the
intolerance of hundred or even
fifty years ago has been immensely
broken down. The average Ameri-
can does not care what may be the
religious or political faith of his
neighbor, so that he is a good citi-
zen and lives within the laws. This
is due to two causes--a more gen.
eral education and the increased
travel which brings men of all faiths
and all sections in personal contact
every day. And this is growing
daily. More, it is the tendency of
free institutions to make this so,
for when man holds his own opin-
ions as his by right, it is not long
until he is willing to concede the
same right to his neighbor.
Where Americans are oftener
wrong than any other thing is that
they do not do their duty in each
neighborhood. If they know that
a man has made fortune in great
part by swindling his neighbors,
they do not close their doors against
him, rather if the fortune is large
they are prone to court him. That
is but an example, There are many
others. At the same time, there is
Q steady improvement. The au-
thoritieS ii sotne states are enforc-'