The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1941-04-16
WHAT
ABOUT IT?
BY O'BoYLE

, will have no radical influence on tn
, institutions and manners of American
life. Their mere negation, their mer
epicurean infidelity to the existing
order will never disturb the peace
Negation and infidelity furnish n,
, motive for action. Neither inspires
enthusiasm. If Lenin, Stain, Trotsk,
and American providers and Others
content themselves with making joke
about Morgan, Ford, congress, will
criticizing big business in the narrow
spirit of mere envy, no one will have
cause for fear.
But for the communists and others
Of the left this is not SO. They have
a secret power that lies in the truth
which is mingled with their errors
and in the generous enthusiasts
which are hidden under their flip
pancies.
They are men and women who with
all their faults, moral and intellectual
sincerely and earnestly-with a spirit
that is like to other Christians-ear-
nestly and actively desire improve
ment for human existence. Their
blood boils at the sight of cruelty
and injustice. They make manful
war with every faculty they possess
on what they consider abuses. They
on occasion place themselves in spite
of ridicule and persecution often with
foreknowledge of destruction between
the powerful and the oppressed. While
they assail Christianity with a ran
cour and unfairness disgraceful to
men who call themselves reasonable,
yet often in far greater measure
than Christians they are loyal to those
Christian absolutes to that bed rock
truth that all men are brothers. Some
hold that more absolute truth-the
Fatherhood of God They teach a
practical charity toward men of all
classes and races-the same as Chris
tianity enjoins.
Political and economic oppression,
judicial persecution, arbitrary impri-
sonment, the unnecessary multiplied
ton of disabilities and punishments,
the delays and chicanery of justice,
the exactions of taxes from farmers
already poor, wage slavery are all and
more are constant subjects of their
satire, their eloquent disquisitions,
their inarticulate resentments. When
an innocent man is lynched, when the
picket lines of labor are moved with
guns for pay by other men of labor's
own class but in uniform, when
youth guilty of an indiscretion Is
blasted, when a brave champion of
human rights is born down by re-
spectacle public opinion while would
be braves of democratic patriotism
stand gagged by fear, these commun-
lists and those near them on the left
are ready by any practical means to
sentence to contempt and detestation
the social and economic forces that
do these wrongs.
But the really effective weapon with
which they assail their enemies has
been borrowed from those enemies.
They have come to this that they can
with complete Justification oppose the
morality to the doctrine of the present
order. On the one side the doctrine
that business boasts is derived from
the masters of our early republic and
found in the constitution is disgraced
by the concentration of wealth, great
poverty, misery. On the other side Is
laughing and angry group soothing
at the constitution and shooting out
the tongue at the sanctities of law and
government but ready to encounter
powers and Nominations and attack
high places in the cause of justice,
mercy and liberation.
Communism associated with philan-
thropy, with the teachings of Christ,
the love of neighbor, the Sermon on
the Mount, the golden rule is threat
of no mean terror to the institutions
of the status quo associated with po-
litical, social and economic abuses.
Practical Christianity once was a
power in the hands of ignorant fisher
men. Practical Christianity freed
from the drag of reactionary clerics
can again meet the challenge Of life
and death.
Too many things will give way to
the zeal of revived Christianity. |
Every day will bring to birth new
thoughts and writings In which the |
principles of the status
quo will be attacked.
To feed the hungry, to clothe the
naked, to give drink to the thirsty, to |
harbor the harborless, to visit the /
sick and to bury the dead are God
Almighty weapons against anything, |
against even the claims of formal and |
organized Christianity to be exclusive
y of God
In the meantime the status quo will
make no real defense except by acts
If power and propaganda Names
will be named and called, insults will
)e offered. No real defense Of the
democracy of big business can be ef-
ectively offered because democracy
s a Christian product based on the
Inherent worth of men, on his dignity
Is a son of God and heir to the king II
lom of Heaven.
No man can serve God and Mann
non.
Silence and hush will be ordered.
Witch hunts and prosecutions Of heri-
les may once more appear but all
hat the status quo can do will fall
hort 1t will irritate and exasperate
,ut it cannot destroy.
A new future, and new history of
truggle is upon us, with ignorance
nd stupidity on the one side and
haracter and a final moral rectitude /