The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1926-12-16
THE MEANING OF LIBERTY

often misused is the word liberty.
Liberty is not the right of every
man to do as he pleases. Every man
cannot do as he pleases, since such an
exercise of liberty would limit the
similar rights of others.
Liberty is only the right to do as
one pleases insofar as this does not
sacrifice the freedom of others and
the welfare of society.
The savage in the jungle alone has
that liberty which some conceive to be
the right of every individual; that is
to say, no law restraints him from
working his own will.
But in such a case the ambition of
others to have that same liberty re-
strains its exercise. The strong pre-
vail; the rights of the weak are sacri-
feed.
In an ordered state the individual
must sacrifice his right" to maintain
public nuisance, disregard santa
ton, defy quarantine, refuse school
ing and satisfy his anti-social appe-
titles in order that the people as a
whole may have freedom from annoy
ance, disease, pauperism, ignorance
or violence due to the exercise of what
in a more primitive state of society
would be considered natural rights.
Our crop of anarchists-rebels OPP
posed to regulation in the interests
of society-seems to be growing.
Without counting the advantages of
the protection which society gives
them, they wish not to be bound by
the statutes and ordinances necessary
to the protection of others. Such an
attitude seems to be chiefly the result
of excessive self-esteem.
Especially is respect due social reg
ulation when the safeguards against
which complaint is made have been
effected by legal process in republic
where law is public opinion crystal
lied.
We have no law in this country
which cannot be repealed whenever a
majority of the people so decide. We
have provided in our federal Consti-
tuition for the preservation of certain
personal rights essential to freedom
which even statutes cannot invade.
We have larger measure Of true lib
erty in this Countrywide liberty of
every man to work out his own desti-
ny-than is found in any other coun-
try in the world.
If every citizen should turn rebel
against every law which does not suit
him the result would be anarchy and
the rights of all would be sacrificed.
To expect society to extend to US the
protection of the laws we like and in
turn to denounce and defy those laws
which impose disagreeable restrainsts
upon US, is evidence of the lack of an
underlying sense of fairness. People
can live together only by mutual con-
cessions and a decent regard for the
rules of the game. Those who refuse
to do so are not Square" They at
tach too much Importance to them
selves and too little to others.
We hear much praise for the spirit
of revolt. When people revolt against
society they revolt against them
selves. Those who sheer at the past
and the institutions it has bequeathed
to the present generation, too lightly
estimate the value of their social and
political and economic inheritance and
the cost at which it has been gained.
A little more time devoted to the
study of the good in what exists and
little less to inventing something the
oretically better out of thin air, would
be beneficial to millions of Americans