The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-04-22
U s. BIRTHRIGHT
 IS IN JEOPARDY
 SAYS DR. BUTTER


 something abhorrent by an alert peo- pie determined to save America to the world as a land of opportunity.
 This declaration was made here by Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler. presl- dent of Colum, a University, in an address delivered under the title, "Ts America Worth Saving? Republic or Socialist Autocracy." delivered be- fore the Commercial Club of Ciucin- natl
 Destructive and reactionary for ces," said Dr. Butler, "are actively at work to turn our representative re- public into l Socialist autocracy, to destroy liberty and equality of oppor- unity and to paralyze, the greatest force that the world has ever seen for the promotion of the happiness, the full development of free men and free women. What we have de- tended against German aggression and lust of conquest we must now band together to protect against those more insidious and no less pow erfuI enemies who would undermine the founda tions on which our Amer iCan freedom rests. It would indeed by a cynical conclusion of this war if we Tho have helped so powerfully to defeat the German armies on the, field of battle should surrender, in any degree, to the ideas that had taken possession of the German mind and that led the German nation into it's mad war against the free world.
 "The cornerstone of American gov erument and of American life is the civil liberty of the individual citizen. Where there is individual opportunity here will always be inequality. There ore, il is that when individuals exert themselves freely some progress more rapidly than others. some secure larg- CT rewards than others, and some gain greater eniOyTn ent than others The only- way in which this inequality can be prevented is to substitute tyranny for liberty and to hold all men down to that level of accomplishment which is within the reach of the weakest and the least weII-endowed. This, however, is false democracy. not true democracy. Dem ocracy has begun to decay when it becomes a combination of the mediocre and the inferOr to re- strain and to punish the more able and the more progressive.
 But we are now told that these in euualities due to liberty have become so very great ana the disparity be- tween individuals so marked, tn civil liberty and individual OppOrtul-- ity must be displaced by the organ ized power of the state.
 Men of Ohio, this is the first long and dangerous step on the path lack toward autocracy and ntlitarisIn. Once a state becomes a0-pOwerful t easily thinks of itself as unable to do wrong. and so becomes the immoral state of which Prussia and the Ger man Empire have been the most per feet types The all-pOwerful and un- .-l oral state can see nothing higher than itself; it admits no principle of right or justice to which it must give heed; such a state is an end in itself, and what it chooses to do is neces- sarily right.
 "The most pressing question that now confronts the American people, the question tho underlies and con ditfons all problems of reconstruction and of advance as we pass from war condition to the normal times or peace. is whether we shall go forward by preserving those American prin- ciples and American traditions that have already served US so well, or whether we shall abandon those prin- ciples and traditions and substitute for them a state built noG upon the civil liberty Of the individual but upon the pIeuary power of organized gov ernment.
 "Au of us who are in ou- right minds are anxious to improve social conditions. to better the public health. to decrease the hours and the severity of labor, to increase the re- wards and to add to the saisfactions of those who do the hard manual work of the world. If by socialism be meant that the individual must not live for himself alone. but must use his powers, his capacities, and his gains for the benefit of his com munity and his fellows. then every American and every Christian is a Socialist. for these are fundamental to American life and to Christian teaching All this, however, is social reform, not socialism.
 The Socialist party is in particular antagonisrn to the courts, and the reason is easy to state. The courts of Justice are an obstacle in it's way.
 'The sinister fact, never to be for gotten. about this party and it's pro- gran1e is that they are in essence and of necessity unpatriotic and un- American. Republicans and Demo- crats diner sharply as to public policy, but both accept the principles of the Constitution and endeavor to apply and improve them each il their own way. Neither Republicans nor Democrats would change the form of government under which we live The Socialist party. on the other hand, openly declares it's purpose to wreck the present form of govern ment. to undo all the work that has heen accomplished for a, hundred and fifty years, and to bring to an end the greatest experiment in republicanisr and the greatest achievement in so- ciaI and political organization that the world has ever seen. Let there be no mistake about the defnitc1ess Of this issue Americas existence is challenged.
 Just as soon as the American peo- rIe. with their quick intelligence and alert apprehension, understand the difference between social reform and political socialism, and the distinction between an internatfonalism that is false and destructive of patriotism and an internaiona1ism that is true sud full of appeal to every patriot, they will stamp political socialism. to- gether with all it's subtle and half