Detroit evening times. (Detroit, Mich) 1921-1958, 1943-02-06
BY REPRESENTATIVE MARTIN DIE


Mr.. Speaker, we are engaged in great strug-
gle to preserve constitutional government and
our American way of life. The most important
phase of that struggle is the supreme effort to win
the war.
THE House of Representatives has from the be-
ginning of this emergency co-operated in every
respect with the executive department in order to
prepare this nation for the struggle.
There is no Congress in the history of America
that appropriated more money for our military
preparedness than the last Congress. The executive
department has received the fullest degree of CO.
operation in it's effort to defeat the Axis powers
But while this is the most important phase of
the present conflict there is another phase of al
most equal Importance. This is not only clash
between the armies of the Allied nations and the
armies of the Axis powers.
Of almost equal Importance with the conflict
between rival armies, the armed forces of democ-
racy and the armed forces of the Axis powers, is
the struggle between conflicting deologies of gov
eminent
THE nineteenth century liberalism which ad-
vocated the protection of individual rights,
which eliminated IN those great and eternal beliefs
and philosophers which surround the individual
with every possible protection in the enjoyment of
his rights, has been challenged for long time by a
new philosophy which in one country is COM
munism, in another country fascism, in another
country nazism, and in another country bureau
cracy.
But the underlying principle of all of these
PHILOSOPHERS is essentially the same. Stripped of
their verbage and viewed in the naked truth, we
find similar phrases, and similar expressions as
well as similar policies and programs.
w tended in Mein Kampf that the highest duty
OF the individual is to subordinate himself to the
state We read in the doctrines of Marx the pro-
nouncement that the state must be supreme. In the
fascism of Mussolini there is a corporate state
administered and controlled by self-perpetuating
bureaucracy. The very essense of fascsm is and has
been centralized state, state that expands ex-
tends and broadens until ultimately the individual
becomes mere cog in collectivistic system of
government.
Mr.. Rankin of Mississippi. Will the gentleman
yield?
Mr.. Dies. I yield to the gentleman from Misss-
sippi
Mr.. Rankin. The gentleman has overlooked, in
my opinion, one of the most important, one of the
most dangerous ideofogies that threatens America
now and for generations to come That is the
theology known as shintoism that Japan is spread
ing throughout the world and especially in the
United States.
MR.. DIES. The gentleman is absolutely correct
1VA The point am trying to make is simply that
when liberalism first came into existence it repre-
sented struggle of the people against centralized
government and, the gentleman from Texas
(Mr. Sumners) stated in speech few days ago,
and he expressed it appropriately, the history of
democratic progress has been the history of de-
centrazation
Liberalism was derived from the word liberty
1t meant those who were in favor of the liberty of
the individual and of the entire body of society It
meant those who were struggling against great
bureaucratic or autocratic or oligarchic govern
ment whichever you may term it, in which the
citizen became nothing and the state was every
thing.
THROUGHOUT the centuries man has struggled
to attain that status in society where he as an
individual would have certain inherent and nalien-
able rights, and always there has been the trend in
every country to suppress those rights.
We sometimes overlook the fact that in our
own country there has been trend toward GEN.
tralized government, not of the same nature and
perhaps not as marked in foreign countries but,
nevertheless, over period Of several or more dec
AIDES there has been constant, steady trend