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be to kindle the imagination again with the thrill and glory of the
struggle of men to be free.

## An Institute of Democracy

National Re-Dedication has for eight months or more been active in behalf of the purposes outlined above. In spite of a very limited budget, it has evidently created a considerable impression throughout the country. The anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights, on which it laid particular emphasis, was widely observed in the press, the churches and the schools, some 80,000 signatures to the Pledge of Re-Dedication were gathered in the state of Arizona alone from individuals over eighteen years of age, many mass meetings were held on December 15th, and on the preceding day, an hour's program of exceptional distinction was broadcast from Hollywood by the motion picture industry, in behalf of National Re-Dedication. In all these activities the Boy Scouts of America were especially cooperative and efficient, and The Sharpest Newsflow took the initiative in many centres and rendered exceptional service through editorials (on) and articles. National Re-Dedication has brought together twenty leading national bodies and a distinguished committee of sponsors, and built up good will of considerable value throughout the country. Since there are other groups in the field, similar in general purpose, it would seem important, in order to prevent duplication and general ineffectiveness, that an effort be made to draw all these groups together in a single, powerful INSTITUTE OF DEMOCRACY.

## Activities

The primary functions of such an Institute would be

brings concentration of power, brings also a degradation and confusion of
political ideals; and a new crusade for liberty would almost inevitably end
in a crucifixion of the Bill of Rights.

Democracy cannot be preserved by the repudiation of democratic
principles; yet it is precisely such a repudiation which military success
demands. Democracy can be preserved only by keeping those principles vivid
and electric in the minds of the people. Our democracy is endangered not
by any temporary success which the dictators might achieve in Europe, but
only by the fading of the enthusiasm for liberty in the mind of the individ-
ual. When, for any reason, the fire for freedom begins to burn low, the mind
opens to the seductive doctrines of the enemy, and surrender has begun. Guns
and ships and fighting-men cannot preserve liberty. If it is to be preserved,
it must be preserved in the human heart.

II

We have a part in the war against the autocrats, in that 'ir-
repressible conflict' of those who trust in freedom and those who trust in
force, which in many forms is already raging. And we may possibly have the
decisive part. That part is not, by the exercise of military force, to res-
cue the European democracies (and Soviet Russia, besides) from the con-
sequences of their own folly or of their geographical position, but to make
ourselves as a people so assured in our faith, so vibrant in our love of
liberty, so determined that American principles of government, of social and
economic justice and of equality under law, shall be preserved, that America
may become again what it was to all lovers of freedom for the first fifty years
of its life, an object of devotion, and of longing, a model to shape the think-
ing of those who will rebuild Europe after the cataclysm.

That is our part in this new war to make the world safe for democ-
racy, not to fight with guns, but to make democracy so effective in preserving

life, liberty and the right of the individual to pursue happiness in his
own way, within the limits of the social structure, that the world will
turn to it again with revived faith. Our part is, in Washington's im-
mortal phrase, "to raise a standard to which the wise and the good may re-
pair"; to set up a beacon-fire whose sparks shall re-kindle the passion for
liberty throughout the world, even within the autocracies themselves.

### III

It is safe to say that, if war comes in Europe, a struggle will
immediately begin in this country between those who believe that America
should support the European democracies by force of arms, and those who be-
lieve that such a course would be fatal, not only for America but for demo-
cracy itself.

In any such struggle, the minority that proposes action has an
enormous advantage over the majority which tries merely to prevent action.
It is of the highest importance, therefore, that the overwhelming majority
that would be opposed to military intervention abfoad should have before them
a program for the preservation of democracy so constructive, definite and
appealing that the propaganda to save democracy by war will seem shallow
and even ridiculous. Such a program will attract countless men and women
who recognize the futility of the effort twenty years ago and see nothing
for them to do, in a similar crisis, except to raise their voices in pro-
test, and watch the nation again drift to catastrophe.

Those millions can be set to work. Their dread, their bitter-
ness and their indignation can be transformed into dynamic energy to build
the kind of democracy in America which can by its spirit help really to lib-
erate the betrayed and bewildered peoples of the Old World.

### IV

All this has a direct bearing upon the aims and the activities of
National Re-Dedication. If war comes in Europe and the propaganda to draw

and blown upon when it burns low. It must
be lighted in the heart of the child, breathed
upon in the soul of the boy and girl, enshrined
in the mind of the man and woman within a
structure of knowledge and responsibility.
Neglected, the fire dies for lack of fuel or is
quenched by the storm.

Dorothy Thompson, pointing out the "in-
exorable effects" on the United States of recent
events in Europe, writes:

"If we are to remain a democracy we will have to
make the most heroic, intelligent and united efforts, to
achieve the fullest sense of responsibility, the greatest
democratic discipline and inner collaboration of all
elements and the deepest sense and appreciation of our
communal existence."

In a time of world conflict between those
who trust in freedom and those who trust in
force, a coalition of seventeen leading organiza-
tions has been established under the name of
NATIONAL RE-DEDICATION to help Ameri-
cans realize what liberty means and what it
takes to keep it.

The movement is backed by a committee of distinguished sponsors, and is wholly non-partisan. It seeks a fund sufficient to enable it to do in behalf of liberty what the Ministers of Public Enlightenment in various European countries are doing so brilliantly in behalf of bondage.

National Re-Dedication asks the support of all Americans who want to see fires starting up in a hundred and thirty million hearts, and democracy made a symbol not of bewilderment and retreat but of exultation and responsibility, and honor and courage and strength.

## National Re-Dedication

JAMES R. GARFIELD, Acting Chairman
HERMANN HAGEDORN, Director
VICTOR F. RIDDER, Treasurer
28 East 20th Street, New York

"Just now the supreme public duty of all thinking men is to assert freedom. Go where it is threatened and say 'I am for it, and do not wish to live in the world a moment longer than it exists.'" —EMERSON.

## The need for NATIONAL RE-DEDICATION

MORE than once, in recent years, it has
seemed as though the balance of the
orderly and the anarchic elements which
we call civilization, had been upset beyond re-
storing and that a new Dark Ages of force, un-
ashamed, was closing in on us. Manchuria,
Ethiopia, Spain, Austria, Czeschoslovakia, the
purges in Russia, the persecution of Jews in Ger-
many, the bombing of civilians in Shanghai and
Barcelona, hate, oppression, violence, broken
pledges, surrender, betrayal—the record is de-
vastating. The triumphs have been the triumphs
of force; the defeats have been the defeats of
reason and mercy and of decent relations among
men. All the victories have been with the dicta-
tors. The democracies have seemed paralyzed with
fear of the world they have helped create, dodg-

ing this way and that, and standing fast, when
they did stand, only just before it was too late.

Why has this been? The free nations
throughout have had the advantage of numbers,
of wealth, of natural resources, of access to the
wide world in case of war, and above all, of the
initiative and resiliency that go with the spirit
of freedom. In the long run they can scarcely
help but win in any struggle with the autocrac-
acies. Yet again and again they surrendered.
Why?

Is not this the reason? The autocrats have
been assured because they have known what
they believed. They have moved with easy
stride because they have known where they
were going. They have been able to act because
they have known what they wanted.

The democracies — have they known what
they wanted or where they were going? They
wanted peace and survival, but they bought
them on terms which in the end could mean
only war or suicide. The autocrats have suf-
fered from no such confusion between desire
and action.

Do the democracies know what they believe?
They are built on the idea of liberty, the im-
portance of the individual and the free co-
operation of free men. But do they believe in
those things, really?

Do we Americans believe in them?

Theoretically, yes. Tepidly . . . perhaps . . .
but . . . Those Italian trains which run on time
—are they not impressive? Germany and Rus-
sia have no unemployed. "There must be some-
thing in their theories" . . . even though the
government and the taxpayers are the employers.
"Hitler and Mussolini have no labor troubles
and the capitalists know their place." "Perhaps
what we need is a Hitler or a Stalin." Liberty?
Of course. "But Mayor Hague showed 'em!"

Do we believe what we profess to believe?
Do we actually know what we do believe? Do
most of us know what the liberty we talk about
gives us, and what it demands of us? We have

a vague idea that, of course, we are free and
we're always going to be free. "That's Amer-
ica, God bless her!" But what our rights and
privileges, our obligations and responsibilities as
free men actually are, most of us have never
taken the trouble to find out. Where did these
liberties come from, which we take for granted?
In what struggles of forgotten heroes lost in
the darkness of a thousand years, were they
born? What conflicts, what agonies of blood-
shed and torture went into their making? And
what has happened to free men in the past
when they have failed to cherish what they had?

We have forgotten, if we ever knew. "We've
got our liberties, so why get excited about them?
There was a feller talked to me about com-
munism the other day. Say! He says . . ."
Liberty? "There was a feller over the other
night telling me about fascism. I don't know
but what . . ." Liberty? "I take my hat off to
the Nazis for one thing. They sure have . . ."

If we believed what we profess to believe, we
should recognize communism, fascism and
nazism instantly for what they are—mediaeval
despotism, flood-lighted and stream-lined. But
we don't really believe. And we don't believe
because we don't know.

Conflicts of peace or war, in the long run,
are won by the side which sees more clearly
than the other what it is fighting for, and with
the deeper passion wants to win. The autocrac-
ies have won persistently thus far because their
leaders have been possessed by an idea and have
managed to get their people possessed by it.

Has that no lesson for us?

"If the trumpet give an uncertain sound,
who shall prepare himself to the battle?" Wars
are not won by the tepid.

The democracies have no chance against the
dictatorship countries unless their peoples learn
again the meaning of liberty, and feel again
the burning ardor for it which gave it reality in
America one hundred and fifty years ago. When
the passion for liberty dies, liberty itself is dy-
ing. The flame must be tended and nurtured,

NATIONAL RE-DEDICATION
Report of the Director.

National Re-Dedication was formed in consequence of a letter which Mr. James R. Garfield, President of the Roosevelt Memorial Association, sent to the heads of some twenty-five national organizations, late in March, 1938, suggesting a cooperative movement to make the Fourth of July, 1938, an occasion for a national recommitment to the fundamental principles of American life and government. As a result of this letter, representatives of the American Federation of Labor, the Boy Scouts of America, the National Grange, the National Conference of Jews and Christians, the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, the Workers Education Bureau and the Roosevelt Memorial Association, met at Roosevelt House on April 26th, with Mr. Garfield in the chair.

It was determined to take action, and a temporary organization was established under the name of National Re-Dedication, with James R. Garfield as acting chairman. At a subsequent meeting of the representatives the decision was reached to have the date for the exercises of re-dedication not July fourth but December fifteenth, the anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. The following statement of aims was accepted:

1. To rekindle the public mind to the splendor of America's free institutions and to offer an opportunity for personal re-dedication to the principles of civil and religious liberty;

2. To popularize the Bill of Rights;

3. To proclaim again the power of the ideal of freedom to unite men of divergent races and creeds;

- 2 -

4. to re-assert the demands which the institutions of a republic make on the integrity and the large-mindedness of the individual;

5. To stimulate that faith which has been the nation's strength: faith in liberty, faith in man, faith in America and faith in God.

The following additional organizations joined the movement: Boys Clubs of America, Inc., Camp Fire Girls, Friends General Conference, Girl Scouts, Inc., International Society of Christian Endeavor, National Board of the Young Women's Christian Association, National Council of Catholic Men, National Council of Catholic Women, and the United States Flag Association.

Certain preliminary funds were secured and invitations were sent out to prominent men and women to serve on a national sponsoring committee, with gratifying results. The Hotel Roosevelt offered a suite of rooms for three months, to be used for national headquarters, and the Roosevelt Memorial Association loaned the services of its director, Mr. Hermann Hagedorn, to act as director of the movement. A small staff was engaged and early in June the movement was launched in the press. The editorial comment was most encouraging; and quite especially so in the foreign-language press. The editors of the country seemed to be impressed in particular by the diversity of type and point of view represented on the National Committee, which indeed sought to reflect every shade of loyal American opinion.

An executive Committee was formed, consisting of representatives of the participating organizations, and held meetings

- 3 -

at the headquarters. The Committee recognized that it had two main
functions - on the one hand, to carry forward the purposes for which
the movement had been established; and, on the other, to raise the
funds needed to finance such activity. On the invitation of Dr.
James E. West, Mr. Victor F. Ridder, former head of the WPA in New
York and one of the city's most public-spirited citizens, agreed to
act as treasurer and to help secure funds. The firm of Pierce &
Hedrick, well-known in the field of money-raising for public insti-
tutions, offered to donate the services of ten or twelve of its staff
during the slack summer season, asking only that their expenses be
paid at the rate of $60.00 a week. The Committee accepted this offer
and steps were immediately taken to organize a nation-wide financial
campaign. To set such a new campaign on foot, however, a minimum
of $6,000 was needed at once. All efforts to collect this sum
during the summer months proved futile, and the Committee consequently
found it necessary to terminate the arrangement with the Pierce &
Hedrick organization.

Meanwhile, action was taken to get the general re-
dedication campaign under way. In behalf of the Boy Scouts of America,
Dr. West asked his director of public relations, Mr. Leslie M.
Stratton, to take charge of the public relations of National Re-Dedication.
Mr. Stratton sent out releases to the press and had dramatizations
and other valuable material prepared and sent to 750 local radio
stations. The Bill of Rights was printed in attractive form,
appropriate for framing, and distributed to 3,000 newspapers for re-

- 4 -

production in time for the Fourth of July. A luncheon was held for publishers of foreign language newspapers, who offered hearty co-operation. Numerous folders were prepared and printed setting forth the aims of National Re-Dedication, and indicating how individual citizens could advance the movement.

A Ceremonial of Re-Dedication was prepared for use in camps, printed and distributed to 3,000 summer camps throughout the country. Numerous broadcasts were arranged, moreover, in which Mr. Matthew Woll, Mrs. Ruth Bryan Owen Rohde, Mrs. Gifford Pinchot and Mrs. Elinore M. Herrick spoke, among others. A series of weekly broadcasts on "The Charter Nobody Knows" was carried on by a group of prominent women lawyers, including Magistrate Anna M. Kross, Judge Dorothy Kenyon, Miss Mary H. Donlon and others.

Meanwhile, most of the participating organizations had been distributing the literature of National Re-Dedication among their own branches. The Boy Scouts of America took the lead in enlisting their members in behalf of the cause. In successive numbers of "Scouting" they called on their local councils and troops to take action, with notable effect. All over the country the Scouts responded and began to organize for the celebration in December. An impressive and dramatic program was devised by the Boy Scout headquarters and used all over the country. The Federal Council of Churches distributed an article on National Re-Dedication, by the director, to four hundred denominational papers. The Jewish Welfare Board, the Camp Fire Girls, the National Council of Women, the Roosevelt Memorial Association, and the National Conference of Jews and

- 5 -

Christians and other organizations were also active.

These activities were carried on throughout the summer under the handicap of a budget so limited as to paralyze executive purpose and prevent proper liaison among the participating groups. The director was forced to give time and energy, needed elsewhere, to the effort to secure funds. Individuals of means, however, failed to respond. Early in September, at the close of the period for which the Hotel Roosevelt had donated space, the headquarters were moved to Roosevelt House at 28 East 20th Street, New York, where the two Roosevelt Memorial Associations offered space, and the work carried on from there with a skeleton staff.

In September, however, the international crisis in Europe roused the public to a realization of the menace confronting their democratic institutions. The effect of the success of the dictators at Munich was deepened by the wave of anti-Semitic perceptions in Germany in November. A strong movement of protest in Hollywood was recognized by Mr. Will H. Hays as an opportunity to develop an affirmative demonstration in behalf of American institutions, in cooperation with National Re-Dedication. Mr. Hays invited Mr. Hagedorn to come at once to Los Angeles for a meeting with the leaders of the local movement. At a dinner at the residence of Mr. Joseph Scott in Pasadena, attended by leading executives of the motion picture industry and prominent citizens of Los Angeles, the decision was reached to align the local movement with National Re-Dedication and to take steps at once to arrange a nation-wide broadcast on the anniversary of the ratification of the Bill of Rights. While Mr. Hagedorn remained in Hollywood

- 6 -

to supervise the preparation of the broadcast, Mr. Hays returned East for a luncheon with a small group, including Colonel Theodore Roosevelt, Mr. E. D. Coblentz, publisher of the "New York Journal", Dr. James E. West and others. As a result of this luncheon, Mr. Coblentz secured the cooperation of Mr. Hearst who gave orders that his newspapers throughout the country give the fullest support to National Re-Dedication in connection with the celebrations on December 15th.

As a consequence of this eleventh-hour support, the ratification of the Bill of Rights was commemorated with editorials and mass meetings from Coast to Coast, and by an hour's broadcast from Hollywood over a nation-wide NBC network, which was conceded to have been one of the most distinguished and stirring efforts of the sort which the radio has yet produced. Beside Dr. Robert A. Millikan, Mr. Joseph Scott and Monsignor John J. Cantwell, Archbishop of Los Angeles, a score or more of the leading personalities in the motion picture world took part, including Lionel Barrymore, Paul Muni, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Edward Arnold, Robert Taylor, Frank Capra, Lewis Stone, Mickey Rooney and Jeannette MacDonald. The deep impression made by the broadcast was evidenced by the quality and the character of the telegrams and letters sent to the broadcasting stations and to the headquarters of National Re-Dedication.

The national broadcast was only an incident, though highly important, of the observance of Re-Dedication Day. A series of articles on "What's Right with America" by Dorothy Canfield Fisher, Mary E. Woolley, Paul Mallors, Frederic William Wile, Faith Baldwin and others were sent from the headquarters of National Re-Dedication

- 7 -

to 2000 newspapers and widely printed during the ten days preceding
the observance. An article by the director, "You and I - and
America", dealing with the Bill of Rights and written for Boys' Life,
was sent by the Boy Scouts to a similar list of newspapers for re-
publication and extensively used.

The anniversary was widely observed, moreover, in the
churches and the schools and in public gatherings. In Arizona alone,
under the leadership of the Boy Scouts, some 80,000 signatures to the
pledge of re-dedication were gathered from individuals over eighteen
years of age. Mass meetings or other important observances were
held in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington, Baltimore and
Atlanta; in Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Kansas City and New
Orleans; in Dallas, Denver, Salt Lake City, El Paso, Cheyenne, Tucson
and Phoenix; and in San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Portland,
Seattle, Spokane and Tacoma. In New York City, exercises were held
in the public schools and three mass meetings, it was reported, were
held in Hunter College alone. In Philadelphia, 275,000 school chil-
dren attended special assemblies, and copies of the Bill of Rights
were presented to every senior high school pupil and every principal.
The Hearst newspapers took the initiative in many centers and rendered
exceptional service through editorials, cartoons and the organization
of meetings, emphasizing in simple, dramatic and understandable
terms the significance of the Bill of Rights.

This, briefly, is the record. In an enterprize of
this sort, which is, and must be, a web of imponderables, elusive
and defying appraisal, no balance-sheet is possible. Success ob-

- 8 -

viously, cannot be measured in terms of press clippings or radio
audiences or printed matter distributed or articles published. A
word has been set ringing in the ears of millions, a word signify-
ing a fresh recognition of certain basic values in American life
and a fresh commitment to their perpetuation. Here and there, per-
haps, imaginations have been stirred, lights have been kindled, a
hunger to defend and enrich America's free institutions has been
awakened. Through the word "rededication" the idea has been drama-
tized anew that there is an obligation resting on the individuals
toward the institutions on which his liberty depends.

Obviously, a fully functioning organization with a
$100,000 budget, as was originally contemplated, could have made a
far more extensive impression. Thanks to the cooperating groups,
notably the Boy Scouts, the result, however, was beyond anything
which the money raised or expended would seem able to evoke.

A financial statement is attached.

Respectfully submitted,

Director.