The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1921-11-21
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A ND T Fl | N G S

There are world tendencies which call for
settlement at the bar of public opinion, for as
sure as you please there is an organized effort
to suppress individual liberty under the plea
that it is for the best interests of society.
It's no rev question which is being strung but
from time immemorial has divided mankind into
opposing camps. There are those who trust the
people while there are others who believe that
it cannot be done with safety either to society
or to the state. Autocracy and democracy are
still pitted against one another in spite of the
late war.
In world, which never has been and is not
free, in spite of Jean jacques Rousseau, and all
the hullaballo about liberty, equality and fra
ternty," and the Jeffersonian doctrine that
"all men are born free and equal" the acid
test of political change is tendency towards
liberty or not. Somehow the more advanced
we get the more it seems we have to surrender
our personal liberty.
Man never has been free, he has only been
comparatively free. And man is not free now;
but no one will deny that under democracy men
are comparatively more free than they were un-
der other forms of government. And so Hobbs
wrong when he said that monarchy was
better form of government than democracy, so
wrong that his opinion has stuffed his influ-
ence even if we take the word of noted Eng
fish publicist for the statment.
America went to great pains and expense to
set up the statue of Liberty, the gift of France
in New York harbor in it's commanding position
where the goddess never fails to stir the emo
tons of returning Americans or inspire hope in
the breast of the men and women of other lands
who come seeking these United States as a
place where they can have modicum of liberty,
and abide or later return to the old country.
I am no synic, but which better typifies this
land of ours, the statue of Liberty as she
rears her head out of the sea the Woolworth
tower which plants its feet on solid ground in
the heart of the great city?
The thing 1 am striving to get at is this
Are we as Americans more interested in the
pursuit of liberty than we are in business?
Which is the dominant thing in the life of the
people. Question of wages and the right to
work: question of hours and the right to have
leisure; all the poverty and misery of the sub
merged lay between the statue in the bay and
the building on the land.
The next statement will be challenged and
yet unhesitatingly go on record that it is i'm
possible to be free unles you possess certain
measure of wealth; and that the pursuit of
wealth is neither sordid unnatural. Despite
the philosophers and social and religious re-
formers negation of wealth as having anything
whatever to do with happiness from PATIO to
Maeterlinck, the blue bird, to common men has
always meant just the health which comes from
good food and clean living conditions, bit of
leisure for study and play, and the power to buy
few things And then to be let alone.
But yearly our personal liberty is vanishing
even here in free America and for one in
spite of being misunderstood by people whose
opinions l covet, unhesitatingly give warning
that it is high time that we make a fight to
preserve the freedom handed down to us by
our forefathers we will have precious little
left to pass on to our children. Day by day
under economic, social, political religious
pressure personal rights are being invaded
and unless there is halt called this boosted
thing which we call democracy will be failure.
The rattle of the Prussian sabre in Wilhelm
strasse was the music to which the German
people surrendered their personal liberty into
the hands of the INSCRIPTIONS Hohenzollerns
until the last vestige of indivdualsm was sac
rificed on the altar of the state. Surely the
state has rights, but the best way to preserve
them is not to raise up mannikins but men who
hold dear the priceless heritage of liberty
which came down to them through the centuries
at the cost of blood and will only surrender
them in moments of peril when the country is in
danger and not to marrying officials in times of
peace.
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