The Omaha guide., 1941-03-29

The democracies are in danger of narrowing their front. That
front must not be allowed to shrink to the limits of England. for how
erer acute the moment there it is still only one point of the front.
That front extends to millions OF people within the democraces them
selves who share little or none of the benefits of the form of govern
ment for which they are now, II maybe, compelled to fight.
/ speak of the millions in India, who, without being given their
right to choose for themselves, have been forced to give men and re-
sources to support a democratic government which has not given them
democracy, and has, indeed, within recent weeks put into prison yet "a
gain and for a period of four years that leader of Indian democracy,
Jawaharalol Nehru.
speak of twelve million Negroes in the United States of Am
erica, who are oppressed by race prejudice which prevents their TAX
ing any active share in the life of the nation. They are excluded Soc
tally and economically and cufurally by the white Americans, and yet
they are being told today to fight for the liberty and equality of de-
mocracy. Who can blame them if they ask; "Whose liberty? What
equality?"
I speak of the peasants of China, long oppressed by govern
ments, by the rich, by the inteligentsia. Seventy-five percent of
these PEASANTS N iiterate. Taxes, collected sometimes as much as
fifty years in advance, have kept them in dire poverty. Opium has
been forced upon them that officials might collect revenue. Flood and
famine and civil war have been allowed to kill them Degeneration
after generation, nor have they been relieved in anyway, their more
fortunate fellow countrymen taking the canous view that the deaths
of thousands of peasants are China's strongest resistance today to her
enemy.
For whose liberty and equality are we fighting. when we fight
for democracy, unless we fight for all? When we defend democracy,
whom are those we defend, if we do not defend all? Unless we are
willing to face this full front of battle, we shall lose, even though Hit
Ter himself is defeated. And we cannot evade by refusal to speak to
each other of our weaknesses. The American must not fear to speak
of India. o refuse to acknowledge the Negro. And neither he nor
the Brton must fear to speak with candor to China. To fight with
England for Europes freedom while India is governed by tyranny, is
a monstrous contradiction, and yet no more monstrous than that while
the United States prepares for a mighty defense of her democracy
twelve million Americans should be denied equality in a nation found
ed upon equal opportunity for all, and not more monstlous than that
III nina, d country Ilgnlng CHe aggfeSsof, MILLIONS Oh peasants ave
little redress from expressions of their own people who are profiteers,
landlords, miitarists and corrupt officials.
Democracy cannot win 81 long as these contradictions remain
unchanged. We will lose from within. For this wal now going ON in
which the last great democracy may soon be plunged, is more than a
material war. 1t is a war in which, if the democracies re to win,
they must win by clear conviction of the right. We will not get an
about energy even for defense unless the moral issue is made clear
for all honest people. And people ~ more honest, they are harder
and less sentimental today than they were in the first World War.
That war came suddenly after years of soft living. But this war
comes after years of struggle and depression and hardship. Senti-
mentality has already been stripped away. Stronger men and women
face the war today. They will make ready their defenses, they VIII
fight, for that in which they believe. But they must first make sure
that the thing in which they believe is true, and not a mouthful of
words.
Millions upon millions of people, at this hour now approaching
crisis, wait for leadership toward freedom. That leadership will not
come in clear and infalhbe and necessary strength until it comes
first out of moral truth. Millions ready to follow, wait for a sign.
What better sign could there be than that the enslaved within the de-
mocracies themselves shall be freed? Nothing and no one could pre-
vent victory then. But lacking that sign, who can foretel the future.