The Ypsilanti daily press. (Ypsilanti, Mich.) 1928-1962, 1941-04-25
MEMBER OF
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
FRIDAY, APRIL %, 1941
AMERICAN PHILOSOPHY

1t is fitting that Americans
should cast line into the Stream
OF Time and take a reading of their
fortune and their prospect.
What OF the future of America
What OF the future OF traditional
American liberties? Will the nd
ton and the freedom its people
have enjoyed for more than one
hundred and fifty years come
through Nineteen Forty-one I'M
scathed?
Doleful voices are heard in the
land. Voices OF fear. Voices o.
war. Voices OF dire disaster.
These voices proclaim that all.
or nearly all, is lost. That this
Nation cannot meet and conquer
the obstacles to a prosperous and
free future. That 1t must abandon
It's traditional liberties voluntarily,
or see them ground to dust by !r-
restible forces at large in the world
against which one nation-eyen
the United States-cannot prevail.
The superficial plauslbility OF
lIlS al sulllcnl 0dLlus IL no
American tradition was founded
and nurtured on neither superficial
ity nor plausibility. Certainly there
was nothing superficial about the
patriots of the Revolutionary
period, nor did their efforts seem
plausible to most Of the world OF
their day.
But they fought through to the
goal toward which their faces were
turned, and liz time the civilized
world was forced to see that they
were eternally right.
In their footsteps came other
resolute Americans representing
each successive generation. Men
who knew neither fear nor doubt
but only the determination that
America and liberty must prevail
Each crisis has produced them.
The American struggle has not
always-in fact II has seldom
been an easy struggle, but 1t has
been carried on relentlessly and
doggedly by free men giving of
their ability, their strength and
their resources all that the times
demanded.
The American spirit Is something
separate and apart from the ma
tionA feeling OF any other peo-
pies. Nor is this solely because n
America have been fused all the
races of the earth. II Is an evolu-
tionary development rooted in the
n NJ n ~
liberty and freedom and the equali-
~ Of man were proclaimed from the
New World.
There was no liberty then any.
where In the world to compare 70
American liberty. That which has
since been defined as totalitarian
government held sway in the other
nations OF the earth, and men were
but automatoms.
Today the philosophy OF the
Rights OF Nan which was first pro-
claimed on these shores, and which
was then so unique in all the realm,
stu fiourishes here. Again-after
period which saw its spread 20
large areas OF the world-it is a
philosophy unique TO America.
Nor shall it ever falter in the
United States while there live
Americans worthy Of the name.
Those who through fear or malice
hold differently may well tremble
for their own safety, because their
defeatism jeopardizes not their
country but only themselves.
II II seems TO some that the flu.
- ture OF this Nation looks dark
indeed, that problem OF the past
never attained the magnitude OF
those Of today-that the American
people have permanently abandon
ed the old do or die spirit--the
foundation OF their pessimism Is in
themselves. There have always
been the faint and the fearful. but
their counsel has never prevailed.
1t shall not prevail now.
The heritage OF liberty and free
dom and opportunity and security
shines as brightly as Americans
are determined that 1t shall. The
light Of American greatness can be
dimmed only by the disintegration
OF the American spirit.
Americans today-alone OF all the
peoples OF the earth-are the mas.
ters Of their destiny.