Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1920-01-22
FRIENDS CHAMPION
LIBERTY OF SPEECH
Issue Statement Warning o'
Practice of Breaking Up
Public Meetings
FREEDOM ASSURES PEACE

Warning Of the menace to popular
government or the spirit which breaks
up meetings am forbids speakers to
deliver addresses was voiced in a state =
ment given 1ut last night after the
Philadelphia ~rariy meeting of the So
ciety of Friends.
Education. with liberty to speak,
write and discuss all problems. 1T was
held, offers the surest way to peace and
progress.
The statement addressed ''to all who
love representative government in the
states" follows:
The peri!s OF the war are behind us,
but the problems of peace are before
us. The world is Secthing with unrest,
disturbances and conflicts. New ideas
are finding expression, new theories OF
social life are being voiced, new de-
mands for changed conditions in gov
ernment and industry are assailing our
traditional institutions. Extremists.
both reactionary and radical, are. pro =
claiming strange creeds. We in Amer
lea, though distant from the storm
center, are finding that we are not i'm =
mune from this world restlessness. 1t
has knocked at outdoors, it has crossed
our threshold, and it is asking us the
with this confusion of thought aud
turbulence of action?
There Is Only One Way
Upon the way in which we answer
that question in our national life hangs
more than we know of good or evil
for our country. There is one way
and one way only--in which we can
hope to achieve sane and peaceful prog
ress. 1t is the way of education, of
increasing understanding of the causes
and cures of this great unrest. And
there is one condition-and one condi
tion only-upon which we can hope to
follow this path of peaceable and or
DERBY advance. 1t is the condition OF
individual liberty, liberty to interchange
ideas and information, liberty to speak
and write, liberty to discuss. In any
other direction lies stagnation or up
heaval.
Because we believe liberty of expires
sion to be of the highest Importance t.
the welfare of our nation and of the
coming generation We are profoundly
disturbed by the widespread tendency Ia
forget and depart from this principle
From many quarters we hear of speak
ers prohibited from delivering addresses
and of meetings prevented or broken up,
In recent strikes the police and powers
of government have been invoked to en- e
force the prohibition of gatherings in
stead of to protect men in their lawful
right of peaceable assembly. The men -
acing and pernicious interference with
meetings by organized groups of pri
vate citizens in the name of patriotism
is sinister blow to our American lib
critics, which should not be unchallenged
In challenging the right of five Social
lists to take the seats to which they
were duly elected. the Legislature Of
New York has laid violent hands upor
the foundations of representative gov
ernment. Sedition laws for peace time
such as those already passed in some
states, and those now pending in Con.
gress, are inroads upon the domain O
American freedom, pregnant with in
justice and danger.
No Man Can Measure Harm
No man can measure the harm that
may ensue if we follow far these en-
croachments upon freedom of expires.
sion. History is replete with lessons
of the folly of suppression. Many @
religious and political martyr should
have taught US long ago that you may
torture and kill and silence men, but
truth spoken when Christianity was
the feared and hated doctrine still holds
today: rs this counsel or this work
be of men it will come to naught, but
IL it be of God ye cannot overthrow
it." Yet while suppression cannot 81
lence truth it can work many evils. 1t
can produce stagnation of men, $ minds,
and in SO doing cut the tsp-root of
democracy. 1t can bring disaster to
those who imposed it, as it did when
the Federal party passed the sedition
law of 1898, and in the words of a
leading historian from the day the
bill became law, the Federal party went
steadily down to ruin. 1t can pro-
duce revolution. Let France and Rus
sia bear witness. II will make them
conform or | will harry them out of
the land" cried James I of England,
against the Puritans, and these words,
it has been said, "heralded the struggle
which within half century was to de =
liver up James's son to the execu-
TONER
No easy Indifference will suffice to
maintain freedom among us. Liberty
asks of us a price, the price of toler
ance toward those to whom We do not
wish to show tolerance. But it is only
the unpleasant or hated utterance that
really tests the quality of our lib
erty.
Must Protect Minority
''The supreme test of civil liberty,
a noted English lord has said ''is our
determination TO protect an unpopular
minority in time of national excite
ment." In times of intolerance and op-
preston the founding of great com
monwealth by William Penn on the
principles of religious and civil liberty
helped to form our national policy oi
individual freedom. Our loyalty to that