The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1941-11-19
IN OTHER
WORDS
BY JOHN STAHLBERG

We keep repeating, like little boys
whistling in the dark, that no one can
ever take away our traditional Hber-
ties, that the love of freedom is so
deeply ingrained in the American
character that it will break like a
FLOOD around anyone who attempts to
become a Hitler among us. You can
suppress speech and action and
thought in Europe, we say, because
most of the people over there have
never been accustomed to freedom,
and wouldn't understand or appreciate
1t if they had it.
But not here.
Why, then, does the average Amer
lean mind turn with such apparent
spontaneity to the device of suppress
sion when it meets a thought or a
style of expression which seems dis
turbing or challenging or unfamiliar?
| Why, when we disagree with speak
er on the radio, do we call up the
station and say, please don't give
any more time to Duncan Dunk
worthy; he's all wet on the dry issue,
and, besides, his voice is an octave
too low!" Why, when he are jolted
by an article in a magazine or news
paper, do we write the editor in this
wise: Look here, if you don't stop
lab McScraggs, we shall have to stop
reading your valuable paper, or cancel
our indispensable subscriptions, or
something!" Why does citizen as
intelligent as Dorothy Thompson once
seemed to be (for example, in her re-
view of the unexpurgated English edi-
ton of Mein KampD urge us to sus-
pend the Bill of Rights on the flimsy
pretext that some spooky flash of ex-
tra-sensory perception has warned her
that Lindbergh would like to be
heiled?
In a people which values freedom,
none of this sort of behavior makes
very good sense. AS citizens of
democratic society we have not only
the right but the duty of stating our
own points of view, of trying to set
public opinion right when we believe
it is being misled; but we have no
right to attempt to muzzle other peo-
pie. Often as we have heard this be-
fore, well as we know it if we but
stop and reflect, we still need, it ap-
pears, to remind ourselves that it is
true:
We have no right to attempt to
muzzIe other people - any people =
especially if they oppose us. The
very essense of freedom is the riuht
to differ, the right to oppose; and
every individual must remain his own
Judge of the proper time to exercise
the right. To make the point crystal
clear, let us express it in terms of |
definite personalities, of you and of
me. Surely you will not deny that a |
social or political arrangement which |
allowed you to speak your opinion
only if it agreed with mine, would be |
intolerable! 1t would not be freedom.
but coercion. 1t would be tyranny,
and ! would be tyrant. You do see
thatI
The favorite trick of the suppress \
slonists is to talk piously about the
abuse" of freedom-that is, to at Il
tempt to make freedom synonymous
with license, and thus to give it an
air OF the immoral, the criminal. or
the merely silly. The attitude they
assume is possible only to supreme
cyclists or to persons whose heads
are so impregnably wooden that they
simply haven't ever grasped the con-
,ept of the other fellows rights at
I'll. There is never any suggestion of
readiness on their part to surrender
heir own freedom; what they want is
he right to determine how much free
lom is good for the rest of us. Such
n attitude is not merely wrong
loaded and dangerous; what is per-
APPS more likely to move these monu-
rental prigs is that it is offensive.
Ike sort of spiritual BIO. 1t stinks
I the nOcfri1c of oo,,,,,,o,, eo,,oo |