The guardian. [volume] (Boston, Mass.) 1901-1960, 1949-07-23
'COIored and White
Linked Together In
Fight For Freedom
]. Finley Wilson

religion cannot sustain nor per-
petuate themselves. Like liberty,
they rest upon the heartfelt de-
termination and eternal vigilance
of a patriotic people.
AS you are aware, throughout
these United States the pattern
of intolerance is being woven
ever more tightly around the
many by the few.
The colored people have known
for all their generations in
America what it means to be told
what to think, what to say,
where their place is, and how
to walk TO it.
Now, whites are also being
told what they may believe and
with whom they may associate,
what they must not believe and
with whom they must not asso-
ciate.
Truly, colored and white are
linked together On this fight.
Long ago, Booker t. Washing
ton declared that you cannot
keep man down in a ditch
without staying there with him"
But this is only part of the
human story.
The other part, the vital part,
is that man will not stay down
III a ditch. He will rise up.
In this year of hysteria, men
are being tried for their beliefs,
men are losing their livelihood
for their beliefs. men are lynched
for their beliefs.
There are those who think we
have as much, even more free
dom, today than we have over
had.
But freedom to comply is not
freedom. Freedom to say "yes''
is not freedom to say mo-
Implicit in our Bill of Rights
was recognition of honest, Cod
fearing patriotic Americans, that,
like thepeople of England ESQ
years ago, our free people needed
govrnment, controlled by genuine
democrats.
Under our Bill Of Rights, GER
tain inalienabIe rights were guar
snteed the people. All were rati-
fed by three-fourths, or more of
all the states, and some of these
states, claiming rights they did
not have, launched a four-year
war to maintain those rights.
even though their success would
have meant the destruction OF
Liberty and Union, one and in
separable, now and forever"
Beaten to their knees by the
righteous Union armies, led by
Meade, Sherman, Grant, and di-
rected by unquenchable patriotic
sentiment, they crept back into
the Union, ratified" all the post
war Amendments that extended
the Bill Of Rights to all the
American people, native born
and naturalized, without regard
TO race, color, creed or national
origin.
The non conformists, ever
since Lincoln's Emancipation
Proclamation, and adoption Of
the 18th, l4th and 18th Amend
ments to the Constitution, have
been trying and even succeeding
in doing, indirectly. what they
had no right to do directly, thus
] forming substantial basis for thi:
Bill Of Rights Conference.
Permit me, please to state my
honest belief that those who
would protest our stand, and
who would be "let alone" to &C
their way in defiance of the
/ American Constitution should
be reminded sharply that it woule
be as fatal to our country anc
all its people to heed them to-
/ day. as it would have been tc
''let them alone" in 1860.
Such action at that time would
have meant. as our two World
Wars have shown, such a fatal
division of our country as would
have enabled Germany today tc
enslave the world, including the
! people Of these United States
and all the "Secessionists" them
selves. The Lovejoys, Garrisons
Summers, Stevens, Douglass Of
that period, were undoubtedly
inspired by the Great Ruler Of
the Universe to rise up snc
thwart the rebels who had nc
respect for any rights" except
wars, or crispus Attacks in Bos-