Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1911-10-11
sueVERTERs OF LIBERTY.
Many Influences Which. Have Aroused
the Aiarnfsts.

a good friend, who. in the columns
of this newspaper has voiced his fear
that the Judiciary may subvert tho lib
critics OF the American people has this
trait in common with a great many
other persons-that he looks Tor the
subVerter in almost any other place
than that from which he i9 likely TO
come. In the course of a somewhat
extended observation of the alarmists
we have heard similar warnings de-
claimed with reference to great
many other influences. For few, all
tho political parties of whose past rec
ord our correspondent spoke favorably
and the party 10 which he himself be-
longs, the churches of all sects and va
rleties the Mormans. The liquor deal
ers, wholesale and retail, the Legisla-
lures and Congresses, the ward bosses.
the Standard Oil Company. the private
schools and the paroehial schools, and
one assiduous agitator includes the
public schools, the Christian Scientists.
the idle rich, the idle poor, the auto
mobiles the yellow newspaper, the
| conservative newspapers, the beef
trust. the banks, the foreign immi-
grants, the descendants of the May
flower Pilgrims, Wall street municipal
governments, the ten cent magazines,
the dealers in puts and calls, the an
archists. the extravaganza of feminine
clothing, child labor. grain gamblers.
baseball. he colleges, the license of
free speech, the militia, the politicians
the lawyers. the trade unions, the al
legged decay of parental authority. di-
Voree. the woman suffrage movement
the Prohibitienists, and the excessive
consumption of tobacco If all these
have not been referred to at some time
or other as "sappers and miners" of
the peoples rights our recollection is
surely badly at fault. Most of these
are still in the business; but there are
some which have been more than ac-
tive in their day, and have now passed
into the shades. a few of our readers
may know of the nti-Masonic move
Inent. which rose to the dignity of a
political conflict, based on the theory
that the order OF Freemasons was es-
pecially dangerous to the liberties of
the people After that were the Know
Nothings who wanted to put none but
Americans on guard. This Common
wealth had the P L. LIS, who ranked
the peoples rights against aggression,
and who in turn were regarded by
their anita gonists as being among the
peoples deadliest foes. OF still more
recent date were the greenhaekers, and
the silyerites, who had their turn and
disappeared. The survey is rather a
stimulus to cynical amusement over
specialties in liberty destroyers,y
II the liberties of the people of the
United States are ever destroyed, the
fault will be with the people them
selves. who can prevent such an I'M
toward happening IL they choose. Any
one of all the list we have catalogued
can be made an agency of the people
to accomplish that destruction; and
most of them can be made agencies to
prevent 1t. The courts are no differ
ent in that respect from all the rest
With them, as with everything else
the ultimate decision as to whether
thcy shall conserve the welfare Of the
people or attack that welfare rests with
the people themselves and nowhere else
II the people are thoughtful. stable
ccnsiderate, balanced and faithful to
the obligations OF citizenship, nobody
need worry lest the courts Will subvert
their liberties. If, en- the. other hand
the people are Eighty, hysterical ne
Slertful Of duty then Gil the institu-
tons of society will converge to hasten
the breakdown of liberty.-New Bed
ford STANDARD.