The daily progressive-miner., 1918-03-18

ists, This purpose involves individual freedom. individual obedience to the
 laws or agreements which save free
 dom from anarchy. with justice as the
 final aim of both freedom and obedi- ence. In democracy the minority bows
 to the will of the majority. but not to its opinions. It is essential to freedom that personal opinion should be safe guarded. for it is the backbone of de- mocracy. It results therefore that the Itouchstone of democracy is found in its treatment of minorities X repub- lie. no more than monarchy. can claim infallibility or impeccability. So the will of the majority is always subject to revision. The will/of de. mocracy is the composite of the wills of all its soverign people The aims of these may not always be wise or righteous. Their motives are sure to be mixed: hence democracy can not suppress adverse opinions by force only by conciliation and argument. Only a despotism can make desert of opinion and call it peace" X de. mocraoy without tolerance is a con itradiction Of terms. In a democracy each voter is a ruler and each one must be conscientious objector" or something. Every minority is held to- gether by the hope that it may some time become majority. Even one. with right on his side. may become q majority. His soul goes marching on"
 When minority represents folly, 1t soon evaporates in free air Under forcible repression. folly becomes dan gerous. Suppression of thought and speech is the discredited weapon of autocracy. That the land of freedom should be secure in its minorities as well as in it's majorities. our fathers wrote into the Federal Constitution those articles which guarantee freed om ct the press, of speech, and assem- bly,. They valued freedom more high ly than we do because they knew what il was to be without it They had lived under PrusSian King of Eng land. Wrong action may be put down by law. but wrong opinions never.
 But this freedom of minorities ex. acts certain duties as we'll Not every act which is legal can be defended as wise Wisdom of utterance in time Of stress should have definite and defensible moment our Nation is in the strain of gigantic world war Our people as whole believe that their entrance into this war was righteous and unavoidable. They have no mili- tary or economic ends to serve. They use the potential forces Of the Nation to assist the self-governing nations of Europe to resist the aggressions of dynasty. The questions as 10 whether we could or should have held aloof are no longer pertinent. We are in the war, and in so far as any war may be righteous we are on the right side.
 IL is our duty as good citizens to look forward and not backward in these days, and the more intelligent our conception of the restoration of Europe, the more effective will be our share in the great work of the cen tury.
 Whatever our opinion as to what our course should have been or might have been. we can not change it now. We are already in the grasp Of his tory. There is no chance of recession, no gain in obstruction, no policy to be altered this side Of the end. Old is- sues are dead; if We influence the flu. .ure, it must be along lines still liv- ing The one great aim is just and lasting peace. Every detail of war Is wanton destruction unless this proves in fact war to end war" And the only visible road in this direction is along the lines the President has in- dicated. We have no selfish ends of our own to serve, we will serve the selfish ends of no one else. We have no quarrel with any people. But there are hands too bloody for us to clasp and theirs is diplomacy too serpentine for us 10 meet. And both these are inseparab ble from irrespon- sible autocracy, the government of the Dark Ages.
 Tn these days it seems to me that nothing is gained by mass meetings Of protest of whatever sort. They will not change the popular will; they will not bring peace; they will not define our national aims; they will not even obstruct, even if obstruction were con- templated. and their purpose is easily misapprehended. In every gathering Of this sort, when feeling runs high, violent words are sure to be spoken, utterances untruthful or foolish, or truthful and tactless. are to be expect ed, and the press records those mat ters only which are extreme and un- seemH. But the suppression of such meetings by force is equally unfortun- ate. Illegal and unwarranted repres-