Greenbelt cooperator. (Greenbelt, Md.) 1937-1954, 1940-12-05
THE MARCH OF FASCISM

address delivered by Stephen Raushenbush,
at the Cooperative League of the U.S.A.
How the march Of Fascism be halted and the
evolutionary development of mankind continued, on
democratic, American lines, eloqently presented
by r Raushenbush guest speaker at the Co-opera-
tive Congress banquet. There is real "meat" here
for Builder readers to set their teeth into.
The Fascist threat to America does not lie prim-
arl4J in the hate-breeding, alien-aping alien
controlled antt-democratic organizations in this
country and South America, for they be stopped
by vigilant police and citizenry. They will be
stopped if the people think it worthwhile to defend
what they have, against such attacks. The fun
damental threat lies in those many places
social and political structure fails to meet the
fundamental psychological and social needs of
people There, resentment and revolt against
mic insecurity lack of opportunity and purposeless
Of life growing much they grew in pre-
Fascist Italy and Germany Those not things the
people will rally to defend against attacking minor
titles.
We have stronger defenses a-ainst such movements
of resentment and disillusion than the Western Euro
pean nations possessed. It would take, think, at
least another depression or prolonged and futile
war before people would turn their backs the
democratic state and accept ruthless totalitarian
control in return for promi ses of bread, pride,
action, and opportunity. No nation people sets
out and says, I'VE want Fascism.n On the contrary,
they say, rye do not Fascisn," and then side
slip into it for lack and fai lure things
which might have prevented its coming.
We cannot underestimate the change that has
to the people living in the industrial nations Of
the 10th century, They not the chief factors in
their fortune the farmers we're in the early
days Of this nation. Their lives depend not on
their own decisions, not even on their own crafts
manship hard work. They depend decisions
to opening closing of factories, wheat cot
ton consumption, and prices, made sometimes thous
ands Of miles away, by people they never heard Of
Millions Of them psychological1y lost in the in
dlstrialized metropolitan areas, finding way to
their families, their community their
tion, achieving none Of rewards of appreciation
which their fathers grandfathers received in
compact and integrated communities. These the
people whom both major depressions and or wars
descend without the least consent, against which
they find the liberal state an inadequate and some
times elusive protection, and yet for viii CHI they
find no one to blame hold responsible except
state. 1t becomes the scapegoat for all the hard
ship they experience, for it is only institution
which they are able to inflnence.
This attack on the institution of the state which
does not live up to the prom made in its is
not something any of US can ignore, however little
interested may be in the contemporary political
life. For the state, as Hitler has shown, be-
the of autocratic control of every branch
of living, intellectual, religious, economic.
group escape, any more than it escape
effects if the army takes such control. it has
done in Latin American nations, if industry
or banks take it they have occasionally done in
communities in country.
I venture to suggest that in looking back later
the present days will find them marked by even
significant events than the rapid German mill
tary conquest Of all continental Europe, than
somewhat casual movement into the position of heir
apparent to the unattached property and headaches of
the Br tish Empire. Those events give shock.
They give us also the draft, huge devel-
OF"eiiO1 anu surge OF o1d-taShoned natl onaG
mach TENDS to freeze and harden the pattern of
natl nal life.
But more l. portant to lives and DAYS are two
other developments. First, the replacement of 18th
century liberalism in Central Europe by dictator
ship which seems to have accomplished some social
ooJect1Ves viii its predecessor could not accom-
lish, notably full employment a kind of national
unity. Second, the failure Of the remaining liberal
nations in Western Europe North America to find
rapidly either method to solve the same problem
OF how to increase production and and to re-
medy the psychological sense of purposel essness
W1ch character1zes men today, to find philoso-
phy Tor eather liberalism democracy which could
rally the hearts and minds of men today around it's
broader concept of life. The opposition has been
negative. 1t has been merely anti-Fascist hating
without construction, defensive rather than on the
conquering offensive in the way democracy was in its
early life in this nation.