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OUR BILL OF RIGHTS
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OUR BILL OF RIGHTS:
WHAT IT MENTS TO HE
BILL OF RIGHTS SESQUI-CENTERXIAL COMMITTEE

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OUR BILL OF RIGHTS:
WHAT IT MEANS TO ME
OUR BILL OF RIGHTS:
WHAT IT MEANS TO ME
A NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
Edited by
JAMES WATERMAN WISE,
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Issued by
BILL OF RIGHTS SESQUI-CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE
LINCOLN BUILDING, NEW YORK
1941
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COPYRIGHT, 1941, BY BILL OF RIGHTS SESQUI-CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY THE TABARD PRESS CORP., NEW YORK
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Will of Rights Seaqui. Centennial for withe
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BILL OF RIGHTS
SESQUI-CENTENNIAL COMMITTEE
Honorary Chairman
FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT
Honorary Vice-Chairmen
JAMES M. COX
JOHN W. DAVIS
HERBERT HOOVER
CHARLES EVANS HUGHES
ALFRED M. LANDON
SAM RAYBURN
ALFRED E. SMITH
HENRY A. WALLACE
WENDELL WILLKIE
National Chairman
HERBERT BAYARD SWOPE
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NATIONAL COMMITTEE
Helen C. White, President, AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF UNIVERSITY
WOMEN
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Bess Duncan Wells, National President, AMERICAN GOLD STAR
MOTHERS
Milo J. Warner, Past National Commander, THE AMERICAN LEGION
Mrs. Irving Fairweather, National President, AMERICAN WAR
MOTHERS
Walter W. Head, President, Boy ScOUTS OF AMERICA
Lester F. Scott, National Executive, CAMP FIRE GIRLS
Mary C. Duffy, Supreme Regent, CATHOLIC DAUGHTERS OF AMERICA
Joseph Berning, Supreme President, THE CATHOLIC KNIGHTS OF
AMERICA
Raymond Gram Swing, Chairman, COUNCIL FOR DEMOCRACY
LAURENCE R. MELTON, National Commander, DISABLED AMERICAN
VETERANS OF THE WOrld War.
Samuel McCrea Cavert, General Secretary, THE FEDERAL COUNCIL
OF THE CHURCHES OF CHRIST IN AMERICA
John S. McClelland, Grand Exalted Ruler, GRAND LODGE, BENEVO-
LENT AND PROTECTIVE ORDER OF ELKS
Fred S. Harris, National Commander, JEWISH WAR VETERANS OF
THE UNITED STATES
Francis P. Matthews, Supreme Knight, KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS
Charles H. Johnson, Grand Secretary, GRAND LODGE FREE AND
ACCEPTED MASONS, NEW YORK STATE
James J. Davis, Director General, LoYAL ORDER OF MOOSE
Walter White, Secretary, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE AD-
VANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE
Mrs. Maurice L. Goldman, President, NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEW-
ISH WOMEN
Myrtle Hooper Dahl, President, NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION
OF THE UNITED STATES
Joe Hanley, Commander-in-Chief, UNITED SPANISH WAR Veterans
J. Louis Reynolds, President General, UNITED STATES FLAG ASSO-
瀑
​CIATION
Robert B. Handy, Jr., Adjutant General, VETERANS OF FOREIGN
WARS OF THE UNITED STATES
Eugene Barnett, General Secretary, National Council, Young
MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION
Frederick M. Warburg, President, YOUNG MEN'S HEBREW ASSOCIA-
TION
Mrs. Henry A. Ingraham, President, National Board, YOUNG
WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATIONS
Mrs. Ray F. Schwartz, Executive Director, YOUNG WOMEN'S
HEBREW ASSOCIATION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword
Bill of Rights.
The Four Freedoms..
Religion and the Bill of Rights
Guard the Ramparts..
The Right to Freedom.
Rights Carry Duties..
The Strength of Our Democracy.
Soul of Our Nation...
Protection of the Individual.
Our Strongest Guarantee.
Reciprocal Rights and Responsibilities
Validated in Blood...
A Sacred Stewardship.
Renew the Covenant.
The Measure of Americanism.
Vital Forces of Humanity.
To Check Intolerance.
The Protecting Mantle.
Rights-Not Privileges
The Paths Must Be Kept Open.
No Greater Treasure.
Guaranties Against Tyranny.
Truths For Our Time:
The Rights of Labor.
A Time to Remember.
A Tremendous Undertaking.
Rights Must Be Defended..
The Condition of Democracy.
For All Men..
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Beacons to the World.
A Call to Duty.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
A Pressing Responsibility.
Freedom-A Holy Word.
A Shining Charter.
Cornerstone of Our National Greatness..
The Real Test.
Heartbeat of the Republic.
The Danger of Prejudice..
Worth Fighting For...
Our Most Precious Possession.
Our Common Defense..
The Right of Sacrifice..
Chart and Compass..
Permanent as the Republic.
Important As Ever..
Natural Rights
We the People.
For the Protection of Minorities..
Basic Human Rights.
The Basis for Unity.
An Ever Living Legacy.
The Final Victory..
A Bill of Duties...
An Unimpaired Heritage.
The Essence of Civilization .
To Celebrate Liberty..
Old Principles for New Situations.
Never More Precious..
The Breath of Life..
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FOREWORD
Things of the spirit never die. They flame anew
each time they are under fire. They are flaming high
at this moment.
Bombs may blow the body to bits, but they bind
the soul together.
This book is testimony to the spirit of man; to his
personality; to his right to be decent.
From the beginning of time men have had to fight
for this sort of life. The fight has never been easy, but
it has always been won.
As long as men believe in Freedom they will achieve
it. The Dark Ages shall not return.
When Freedom dies man lives on his knees. When
Freedom lives man walks erect.
The Bill of Rights is our Prayer Book and our
promise of salvation. The cause of Freedom is the
cause of God. That is the dedication of this volume.
None of us is wise enough to say finally what one
event is the greatest in our history. There are some
that cry aloud for that description:
The Declaration of Independence; the Treaty of
Paris, ending the Revolutionary War; the adoption
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of the Constitution; the pronouncement of the
Monroe Doctrine; the Emancipation Proclamation;
the end of the War between the States; the war for
Freedom and Democracy, begun in 1917—and still
going on.
I have left to the last, although it belongs at the
top, the formulation and adoption of the Bill of Rights
-the first ten amendments to the Constitution, adopted
by the baby nation December 15, 1791.
In this group of principles are to be found the soul
and spirit of the Constitution. With the Bill of Rights
added, the Constitution becomes nearly a perfect
thing. Without the Bill, the seven articles of the orig-
inal draft are largely given over to the protection of
property.
Jefferson, shocked by the omissions in the Constitu-
tion, as promulgated in 1789, while he was United
States Minister to France (another type of France
than Vichy represents today!) drafted the additions
to our great charter. Thus we were given the Four
Freedoms by which we grew strong in self-reliance;
in courage; in independence and in self-respect.
The Amendments gave us Free Speech; Free Press;
Free Worship; Free Assembly and also the right to
petition. They gave us full protection of the citizen
against oppression; the right of trial by jury and,
generally, the right of the individual against the state.
Jefferson said himself, speaking in the prophetic tone
that is true of great men:
"The Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled
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to against every government."
This publication is testimony to an immortal
writing that will live with the Ten Commandments;
、 the Sermon on the Mount; Magna Charta and those
other great fountains of faith by which men live.
Today we fight again for the ideals that democracy
gives to us as rights. We shall never lose them; the
whole world some day will achieve them.
To help all of us to realize the high privilege we
have of living under the Bill of Rights, the thoughts
contained herein were put in words by men and
women who believe the fires of Freedom must always
burn brightly and sometimes fiercely. Now is one of
those times.
-HERBERT BAYARD SWOPE, Chairman,
Bill of Rights Sesqui-Centennial Committee
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Bill Of Rights
The first ten amendments to the Constitution, known as
"A Bill of Rights," were adopted by the first Congress,
called to meet in New York City, March 4, 1789. They
were later ratified by the various States, and on Decem-
ber 15, 1791, were made a part of the Constitution.
AMENDMENT I
Freedom of Religion, Speech, and the Press;
Right of Assembly and Petition
CONGRESS SHALL MAKE no law respecting an establish-
ment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the
press, or the right of the people peaceably to assem-
ble, and to petition the government for a redress of
grievances.
AMENDMENT II
Right to Keep and Bear Arms
A well regulated militia, being necessary to the
security of a free state, the right of the people to keep
and bear arms shall not be infringed.
AMENDMENT III
Quartering of Soldiers
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No soldier shall in time of peace be quartered in any
house without the consent of the owner, nor in time
of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
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AMENDMENT IV
Regulation of Right of Search and Seizure
The right of the people to be secure in their per-
sons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no
warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, sup-
ported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describ-
ing the place to be searched and the person or things
to be seized.
AMENDMENT V
Protection for Persons and Their Property
No person shall be held to answer for a capital or
otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or
indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in
the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in
actual service in time of war or public danger; nor
shall any person be subject for the same offense to be
twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be
compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against
himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property,
without due process of law; nor shall private property
be taken for public use, without just compensation.
AMENDMENT VI
Rights of Persons Accused of Crime
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy
the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial
jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall
have been committed, which district shall have been
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previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of
the nature and cause of the accusation; to be con-
fronted with the witnesses against him; to have com-
pulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor,
and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.
AMENDMENT VII
Right of Trial by Jury in Suits at Common Law
In suits at common law, where the value in con-
troversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial
by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury
shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the
United States, than according to the rules of the com-
mon law.
AMENDMENT VIII
Protection Against Excessive Bail and Punishments
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive
fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments in-
flicted.
AMENDMENT IX
Constitution Does Not List All Individual Rights
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain
rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage
others retained by the people.
AMENDMENT X
Powers Reserved to the States and the People
The powers not delegated to the United States by
the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States,
are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
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The Four Freedoms
AS THE SECOND YEAR of world conflict comes to an end
America is face to face with certain grim realities. It
is apparent that the expense attached to the defense
effort will run into an appalling sum. The sweep-
ing readjustments that will eventually reach every
family are becoming clearer by the day. The need
for redirection of our whole economy in order to
supply plants which manufacture implements of war
with an abundance of raw materials is now painfully
obvious.
Yes, the world that we know is being refashioned.
But so be it, and although the disappearance of familiar,
patterns and habits of living brings a momentary
shock, there must be no regrets, no longing backward
glances. Neither can we afford to hang our heads,
wring our hands and insist that we cannot defend
democracy without destroying it. After all the only
disaster that will overtake us is the disaster that comes
from indecision and inaction.
Nevertheless, as we throw all our material resources
into the struggle against the forces of aggression we
must also seek to retain the virtues of more peaceful
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living. Just as the person in deadly peril seizes upon a
cherished object to protect, come what may, we must
fix upon our precepts of democratic government and
preserve them no matter what the cost.
There are a good many of these precepts, but I
have in mind several in particular. I am thinking of
how the American-man or woman, rich or poor-can
walk down the avenue unafraid that a heavy hand is
going to drop on his shoulder. I am thinking of how
the American-no matter what his calling, his back-
ground-can talk, and believe, and worship as he sees
fit without fear of reprisals for non-conformity. I
am thinking of the personal liberty guaranteed every
citizen of this country in the Bill of Rights of the
Constitution.
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I like to remind myself of the origin of the Bill of
Rights. It came into being at a time of great distress
and clearly represented the desires of a people who
had paid a high price for their independence and were
determined to keep it. Since that time it has weathered
an internal conflict, foreign wars, periods of economic
depression. Even during these emergencies there has
been no foreshortening of the scope of the Bill of
Rights, nor has its fundamental character been altered.
Invariably after these crises have passed each Ameri-
can has turned his face homeward and found to his
intense joy his personal liberty inviolate.
This augurs well for the future. Perhaps the de-
structive forces loose in the world will assume more
awesome proportions than any yet seen; perhaps the
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dangers and hardships of the civilian population will
be greater than ever before; but I cannot believe that
these new developments will serve to swerve us from
our course any more than the vicissitudes of the past.
Undoubtedly it will mean a vigilant citizenry con-
stantly on guard. But we have that. Undoubtedly it
will mean leadership of the highest quality. But we
have that, too. In fact, I can think of no more impres-
sive reiteration of belief in the Bill of Rights than that
made by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his message to
Congress last January:
"In the future days which we seek to make se-
cure, we look forward to a world founded upon
four essential human freedoms.
"The first is freedom of speech and expression-
everywhere in the world.
"The second is freedom of every person to wor-
ship God in his own way-everywhere in the world.
"The third is freedom from want . .
"The fourth is freedom from fear
"That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a
definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our
own time and generation. That kind of world is the
very antithesis of the so-called 'new order' of
tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the
crash of a bomb.
"This nation has .placed its destiny in the hands,
heads and hearts of its millions of free men and
women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance
of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human
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rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who
struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our
strength is our unity of purpose.
"To that high concept there can be no end save
victory."
-MARY ANDERSON,
Director, Women's Bureau,
United States Department of Labor
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Religion And The Bill Of Rights
WE ACCEPT OUR LIBERTY, as we do our health, pretty
much as a matter of course, hardly giving it a thought
until we begin to lose it. Then we become conscious
of how much it means.
Experience throughout the long period of human
history teaches that liberty must be won in every gen-
eration and can be held only by "eternal vigilance.
As foes of freedom the aggressors reappear with dif-
ferent weapons, but always with the same aim to de-
stroy the souls of freemen.
""
That religion and democracy are closely linked to-
gether is a truism proved amply in the history of our
country. The American colonies were settled by men
and women seeking a free life, as well as a home for
freedom. Religion was written prominently into their
agreements, covenants, pacts and constitutions, but the
early colonists made no provision for the free exercise
of religion. Those who had "fled before the demands
of conformity" later determined by law that others
must conform "or get out of the colony." It was said
of Governor Endicott of the Massachusetts Bay Col-
ony, "If he had found 'toleration' in his dictionary, he
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would have cut the word out, just as he drew his
sword and cut the red cross out of the English flag
because it represented the ancient Catholic faith of
England." This attitude, formulated into law and sup-
ported by stern preaching, led to the founding of
Rhode Island by Roger Williams and his associates.
They were the first ones to put into practice the prin-
ciple of the independence of the individual conscience
even beyond the grants of liberty by the state. Mary-
land was founded by a small company of Catholics
seeking "freedom of worship" in 1634, only fourteen
years after the Protestant Pilgrims had landed at Ply-
mouth.
Under Lord Baltimore's liberal rule there developed
a large degree of freedom in religion, as well as a
remarkable advance in democratic procedure. The
people of Maryland not only took part in making
their laws but were given power to originate laws.
No other colony at the time enjoyed quite as much
freedom and in 1649 the Assembly passed the "Toler-
ation Act" which confirmed by law these liberties.
Following this action Maryland became the refuge
not only for the oppressed Catholics from England,
but Protestants from some of the other American col-
onies, Puritans from Virginia, Quakers and others who
found congenial homes in this colony. It is true that
the "Toleration Act" was not very broad in that it
tolerated only those of the Christian religion, but it
was a step forward on the road to liberty and marked
a greater advance than anything even in England at
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the time. It remained for the colony at Providence,
Rhode Island to advance the Act of Toleration by
granting full religious freedom to Christians and Jews
and even to those without any religious affiliation or
belief. The Act affirmed "that men of all religions,
and men of no religion, should live unmolested so long
as they behaved themselves."
The Bill of Rights was fashioned and adopted as a
part
of the Constitution of the United States of Amer-
ica as a guarantee against the dangers of enslavement
by the majority, for which the Constitution provides
and upon which it confers such wide powers. Experi-
ence under the British Parliamentary system had
proven that Parliament was almost omnipotent. Black-
stone said, “It can do everything that is not naturally
impossible to be done." In other words, Parliament
could not turn water into wine, or raise the dead-
but there were no other limitations at that time!
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The first ten Amendments put the essential rights
of free men and women beyond the power of aboli-
tion or serious abridgement, even by the Congress
they themselves had elected. The first of these rights
is "freedom of worship." DeTocqueville in his study
of "Democracy in America" came to the conclusion
that the character of "Anglo-American civilization is
the result of the incorporated and combined spirit of
religion and the spirit of liberty." Further he says,
"Religion is no less the companion of liberty in all its
battles and its triumphs; the cradle of its infancy and
the divine source of its claims. The safeguard of mor-
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ality is religion, and morality is the best security of
law and the surest pledge of freedom."
Since the days when this distinguished Frenchman
visited us our nation has expanded more than ten times
in population and has become fabulously rich in re-
sources. The dangers today are different in form and
are multiplied in horror, but the fundamental issues
are the same. The results of research have made pos-
sible our great technological advance. Communica-
tions are easy and reach to the ends of the earth. But
is our progress really progress? If so, then what is our
destiny? Our chief danger is that which has faced all
free men: -the danger that the lesser good will blind us
to the greater good, and that we will lose through
sloth and incomprehension what has been gained and
held at so great a cost-our liberty.
Unity in purpose, in thought and in action was never
more essential but this unity does not mean uniform-
ity. In fact, the very attempt to force uniformity will
make impossible true unity. The papers published in
the "Federalist", written by Hamilton, Madison and
Jay for "the purpose of commending to the acceptance
of the people of the thirteen Colonies the Constitution
tendered them by the Federal Convention," reveal a
unity with considerable difference of opinion. For
instance, Hamilton was opposed to making any
amendments to the Constitution and was almost bitter
in his attack on the Bill of Rights. He argued that in
the Preamble to the Constitution everything is said
that needs to be said as a recognition of popular rights
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-"We, the people of the United States, to secure the
blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution." He then char-
acterizes the ten proposed Amendments as "aphorisms
which would sound much better in a treatise of ethics
than in a Constitution of government."
The Bill of Rights was adopted, and now a Hun-
dred and Fifty Years after its ratification it still stands
as the charter of our liberties.
We, with free people everywhere, are menaced by
the war which now engulfs four-fifths of the people
of the whole world. Never has there been a more
brutal onslaught and the spearhead of this aggression
is thrust at the heart of democracy-our Bill of Rights.
The future of our own and all democratic government
hangs in the balance. Blood is being shed as never
before.
This is our world and our fight. If aggression wins
in Europe, we all will soon learn that Hitler's world
has moved a long way toward realization. Hitler was
right when he said: "These two worlds (his and the
democratic) cannot live together; they must break
apart.
""
We celebrate the ratification of the Bill of Rights
in a dark period. We may continue to disagree on
minor things but the risk is too great for us to remain
oblivious to the dangers we face. There are some
objectors and dissidents, many of them honest in their
convictions, but blind to what is actually happening.
The vast majority of our people know what we face
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and accept
the inevitable with hope and courage. Our
nation is rising to the occasion.
We pledge our allegiance to and renew our faith in
our way of life; faith in that Providence which we
believe has led us all these years, and faith in ourselves
to be strong enough to unite us in these bitter hours
of decision. Madison said of the Constitution: "Had
no important step been taken by the leaders of the
Revolution for which a precedent could not be dis-
covered . . . the people of the United States might
at this moment have been numbered among the mel-
ancholy victims of misguided counsels; might at best
have been laboring under the weight of some of those
forms (of oppression) which have crushed the liberties
of the rest of mankind. Happily for America, happily
for the whole human race, they pursued a new and
more noble course.
""
-HENRY A. ATKINSON,
General Secretary, The Church Peace Union
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Guard The Ramparts
IT IS OF FIRST importance that the study of the Con-
stitution should be an essential part not only of the
education of the American youth, but of all Ameri-
cans, and especially those who have become natural-
ized citizens of this great nation. While all of us
cannot be trained in the technicalities of the law, we
should all have some idea of our fundamental institu-
tions. We need to know their relationship to our daily
life, the reasons for their existence, and the benefits
we derive from them, as well as the importance to
ourselves of their perpetuation. The Constitution is
not self-perpetuated by any means; if it is to survive
it will be because it has the support of the people-not
passive, but an active public support. This means mak-
ing adequate sacrifice to maintain that which is of the
greatest benefit to the greatest number.
The Constitution has its roots in the great and
heroic past of the English speaking race. Today, under
that Constitution which was adopted through the
blood and sweat of the pioneers of our country, the
safeguard of personal liberty is ever present. Under
our great Bill of Rights, our governmental power is
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divided into three parts. The first is the power granted
to the central government; the second that reserved to
the States, and the third and by far the most important,
although at times the fact may not be generally recog-
nized, the power reserved to the people under the
many inhibitions of both State and Federal legislation.
In the turmoil which now seems to have engulfed
the entire world, the citizens of the United States
should well remember the last part particularly—it is
the people, those who go to make up the great cross
section of this country, who must guard the ramparts
from the ever increasing dangers of Nazism, Fascism
and Communism. Our Constitution is the final safe-
guard of every right that is enjoyed by any Amer-
ican citizen. As long as it is observed those rights will
be secure, but should it fall into disrespect or disrepute
the way of orderly, organized government as we have
known it for the past one hundred and fifty years will
be at an end.
Americans everywhere must stand guard.
-W. WARREN BARBOUR,
United States Senator
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The Right To Freedom
WHEN THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION was submitted on
September 28, 1787, by Congress to the Legislatures
of the several States for ratification there was very
strong opposition in all the States to its adoption. The
Democrats, under the leadership of Thomas Jefferson,
feared that the provisions of the instrument would
unduly abridge State's rights and result in a govern-
ment too highly centralized for their views. It was
necessary for nine States to ratify before the Constitu-
tion took effect. It was not until June 21, 1788, that
the ninth State, New Hampshire, gave its approval.
The States, which had not ratified up to that time,
were Virginia, New York, North Carolina and Rhode
Island. Virginia and New York gave their assent in
1788. When President Washington was inaugurated
on April 30, 1789 on the steps of the Federal Hall in
New York, neither North Carolina nor Rhode Island
had ratified and, therefore, were not one of the United
States. These two reluctant States did, however, come
into line. North Carolina ratified on November 21,
1789, and Rhode Island on May 29, 1790.
It will be seen by this long delay how strong was
the feeling against the Constitution. Undoubtedly it
• would never have been ratified had it not been for the
assurance given by Congress and by the leaders who
favored the Constitution, especially Alexander Ham-
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L
ilton and James Madison, that the Bill of Rights would
be adopted as soon as the Constitution was ratified.
This pledge was carried out and the first ten amend-
ments to the Constitution, forming the Bill of Rights,
were proposed to the Legislatures of the States on
September 25, 1789 and were thereafter ratified. It
will be seen how much importance our founding
fathers attached to the Bill of Rights. Without under-
taking to enumerate all the rights secured to the people
by these ten amendments, there may be mentioned the
rights of religious freedom, of freedom of speech and
of the press, the right to assemble and to petition, the
right to due process of law, and the right to trial by
jury.
1
Assuredly there has never been a time in the history
of the world when it was more necessary to lay em-
phasis on these great fundamental rights. While all
intelligent persons realize that in times of great emer-
gency the people must voluntarily consent to some sus-
pension of these rights, nevertheless it should always
be borne in mind that such suspension is merely tem-
porary and for a specific occasion. Our Government
is founded upon the right of its citizens to all reason-
able freedom of every kind. It is this great right that
is protected by the first ten Amendments to the Con-
stitution known as the Bill of Rights.
-GEORGE GORDON BATTLE,
Co-Chairman, Council Against
Intolerance in America
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Rights Carry Duties
THE BILL OF RIGHTS was a pacer in the democratic
movement in America and as such is entitled to all the
prestige of leadership. Yet it really took a century
after its enactment for American women to procure
the Nineteenth Amendment to the federal Constitu-
tion which compelled reluctant states to grant them
the basic right of the free-the right to vote. Non-
Christian men and freethinkers of their sex more
readily wrested from state legislatures the guarantee
of their civil rights. But it was not until Lincoln's
Emancipation Proclamation and the passage of the Fif-
teenth Amendment that race ceased to be, by law, a
barrier to the enjoyment of civil liberties for all Amer-
ican men. With the celebration in this year, 1941, of
the original Bill of Rights should therefore be coupled
the celebration of its enlarged guarantees.
But even the original Bill of Rights would have been
a dead letter if dauntless men and women, risking
death, had not taught the public to listen without riot-
ing to opinions which it abhorred. That educational
process enabled the letter of the law to live in prac-
tice, or application, for the American way of life. In
celebrating the original Bill of Rights now, we should
***
29
47,
celebrate with it the courage and skill of the men and
the women who made tolerance a fact as well as a
principle of law. The open forum, so characteristic of
American democracy, owes its inception and its con-
tinuation to persons of both sexes who insisted that
law and practice were parts of the same thing.
That rights carry duties has become a third aspect
of democratic evaluations, nurtured on free debates.
It is increasingly understood in America that liberty
could become license; that rights if viewed as extreme
personal privileges could reduce society to anarchy.
There is today, in connection with rights, the wide
prevalence of the philosophy that rights are granted
to individuals in order that they may develop their
talents for competent voluntary cooperation in the
thought and action essential to the strength of society,
to general welfare, and to the very endurance of civil
liberties themselves.
Theoretically, the tolerance provided for by rights
might induce such lethargy of minds and morals on
the part of the many that the willful few could gain
social control and set up a totalitarian system of gov-
ernment. But history has produced effective revolts
amid persecution-to become in turn tyrannies.
Accordingly, with the value assigned to rights and
the tolerance they imply must be blended the ideas of
statecraft, power, responsibility to the common life,
and the good life for all-if rights and tolerance are to
persist.
-MARY R. Beard
30
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​The Strength Of Our Democracy
A HISTORY OF civilization could be written around
the derivation of the privileges that constitute our Bill
of Rights. The emphasis would be not on rulers and
governments, but on the struggle mankind has waged
for centuries to obtain recognition of the rights of
individual men. These rights are guarantees necessary
to any people who wish to live in the free atmosphere
of liberty. They are the foundation of any govern-
ment that exists by the free will of the governed and
not by the military force of self-appointed rulers.
The history of our own Bill of Rights is fired with
the determination of the American people to preserve
their liberties as individuals living in a free state. It is
significant that these first ten Amendments in our Con-
stitution were drawn from earlier declarations of rights
which a number of the original thirteen States had form-
ulated for themselves before they joined the Union.
They not only served as models for our Federal Con-
stitution but became basic patterns for new democ-
racies all over the world.
Today there is abroad in the world a monstrous
force that would set the clock back and re-establish
31
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}
܂
regimes that rank the state above the individual. Al-
ready in many lands fundamental rights have been
destroyed; and the existence of our own is threat-
ened. Such crises have occurred before in the history
of man but never with such ruthless vehemence and on
such a world-wide scale.
While it is fitting to commemorate this 150th Anni-
versary, let us not honor the Bill of Rights simply as
an historical memory. It belongs not only to the past.
It is indispensable to contemporary life; without its
basic assumptions there is no future for America. We
must not only protect its guarantees, we must devote
ourselves to the aggressive use of the rights themselves.
For it is in the vigorous exercise of those rights that
the strength of our democracy lies. On their survival
rests the hope of freedom throughout the world.
-FRANCIS BIDDLE,
Attorney General of the United States
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Soul Of Our Nation
THE BILL OF RIGHTS has for us a peculiar significance
today when we are trying to make clear to ourselves
those few profound principles which shape our nation
in the form of what we call a democracy. The essen-
tial of democracy is not to be found in any statement
of liberties or in any body of laws protecting rights,
or even in any form of government. It is to be found
only in provision for change and development. Any
form fixed and forever may become the grave of
democracy. But any form which remains forever pro-
visional, which allows amendment and change, which
grows as the will of the people grows toward freedom,
is the safeguard of liberty.
In our Bill of Rights there is this safeguard. The Bill
of Rights began with a protest, our protest against our
own newly made Constitution, because there was not
expressed clearly enough in it this possibility for
change as we changed. Freedom is a living expanding
thing. A child develops from helplessness into the
complete freedom of the individual. So our nation
when it began could not comprehend in one age the
full meaning of freedom for all time ahead. But those
1
33
first Americans knew that above all there must be
room for change, and the group of amendments which
we call the Bill of Rights was that room.
We Americans ought, therefore, to guard as the
very soul of our nation this Bill of Rights, not only for
what it already says but far more for what it
may let
other amendments say in the future. We ought to see
to it as our primary duty that there is never an end
put to this Bill of Rights. The Constitution must re-
main unfinished, ready for new articles, sensitive to
our own change and growth toward a better democ-
racy, a more complete freedom for all Americans
alike.
I look forward to the day when not only in our
Constitution but also in the laws of all our States can
be found the principles which will give to colored
Americans the same justice and freedom that white
Americans now have, to that day when women shall
have equal opportunity and responsibility with men,
to that day when there need be no more fear and
despair in the hearts of the poor, the aged, the handi-
capped. The hope of our democracy lies in our Bill
of Rights.
-PEARL S. BUCK
L
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Protection Of The Individual
FUNDAMENTALLY, THE BILL OF RIGHTS, as embodied in
the Constitution of the United States, particularly in
the first ten Amendments, is the recognition by the
Government of the dignity of the individual, and a
prohibition against any infringement on those rights,
or that individual dignity, by Government itself.
The Bill of Rights, in other words, deals with the
protection of the individual against his Government.
The protection of an individual against another indi-
vidual or group of individuals is not implicit in the
Bill of Rights, but falls more into the realm of police
powers of the Government.
Take the First Amendment. This provides that
"Congress shall make no law" restricting freedom of
religion, freedom of speech and press, nor the right of
assemblage and petition. By implication we, as a peo-
ple, have taken this to mean guarantee of freedom of
religion, speech, and press, and the right of assemblage
and petition, though I am not certain that the Supreme
Court of the United States (as in the matter of Je-
hovah's Witnesses) always has supported this impli-
cation.
SENTRY AND THE
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4.
Other provisions of the Bill of Rights, to bear arms;
freedom from quartering of troops; protection against
unreasonable searches and seizures without proper
warrant; habeas corpus; trial by jury; jury shall have
sole determination of facts; prohibition against exces-
sive bail-all these are for the protection of the indi-
vidual against his Government.
Two other provisions of the Bill of Rights (1) fail-
ure to enumerate certain rights shall not deny or dis-
parage those retained by the people, and (2) powers
not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to
the States, are reserved to the States, or to the people,
do not deal so directly with the rights of the indi-
vidual.
So much for the legal angle, the "letter" of the Bill
of Rights. Of as great moment in our world today, is
the acceptance by all of us of the great principle em-
bodied in the Bill of Rights-Tolerance. Intolerance
by the people themselves can, and will, destroy the
principle of the Bill of Rights-security of the dignity
of the individual-almost entirely, even if there is
strict observance of the letter of the Bill of Rights by
Government.
We ourselves must live up to the fundamental prin-
ciple of the Bill of Rights, or the Bill of Rights be-
comes a dead letter.
-ARTHUR CAPPER,
United States Senator
36
Our Strongest Guarantee
WHEN THE FIRST CONGRESS assembled in New York in
1791, its first act was to pass the Bill of Rights-as the
first ten Amendments to our Constitution are popularly
called. This Bill of Rights granted to all citizens free-
dom of speech, of religion, of assembly and of the
press. It marked a magnificent advance in defense of
liberty and has become our strongest guarantee against
human slavery. It has given the poor man the same
legal rights as the millionaire. The law of this land
protects all alike. This Bill of Rights has preserved our
country as "the land of the free" for the past one hun-
dred and fifty years. Our highest duty is to conserve it
to future generations. Its use must be protected; its
abuse must be prevented.
In this generation, our Bill of Rights is suffering
sharp attacks though many Americans either do not
know or do not wish to know of the danger. Because
it grants freedom of speech, foreign propagandists
spread their false doctrines among our citizens. Because
it upholds a free press, millions of Nazi articles and
magazines condemning our American way-and some
even published at government expense-are delivered
37
TET ER ET
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into American homes by our government-paid letter
carriers. Because it stands for religious freedom, many
speakers use the platform and radio to breathe hatred
against followers of other creeds.
The authors of this freedom-granting Bill of Rights
never intended it to defeat the four freedoms their law
champions. Its shocking abuse may lead to that end.
Therefore, Americans must make sacrifices for the
Bill of Rights. One sacrifice must be to surrender a
fraction of freedom in order to save freedom.
Such a sacrifice in 1861 saved our country from dis-
union. When Civil War threatened our very existence,
President Lincoln temporarily assumed dictatorial
powers. In curtailing individual rights, he defended his
action by saying "It is better to save the Union with-
out a Constitution than to save the Constitution with-
out a Union." Future events justified the President's
course.
Today, as our nation faces another crisis, we should
place sensible guards around our sacred Bill of Rights
so that it will continue to serve Humanity and protect
human freedom for another one hundred and fifty
years.
-RUDOLPH I. COFFEE,
President, Temple of Religion,
San Francisco
38
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Reciprocal Rights And
Responsibilities
LOOKING BACK over the 150 years of American his-
tory since our forefathers wrote the Bill of Rights into
our national Constitution, we can be proud that each
succeeding generation has guarded so intelligently the
fundamental liberties those notable Amendments con-
firmed. Every proposed exception has been subjected
to the microscope of public scrutiny, for the Ameri-
can people have been determined to maintain this heri-
tage of freedom.
As life has become increasingly complex and our
people more interdependent, limitations have necessar-
ily increased. Yet those limitations have been jealously
watched in order that they might not involve denial
of the underlying rights.
But have we assumed, to the extent that this increase
in the complexity and interdependence of our way of
life has required, the responsibilities that attend all
rights, responsibilities that are essential to their pres-
ervation? I think not. Rather than exercise self-disci-
pline and self-regulation, we have turned to govern-
ment more and more, as if it were the sole means of
checking abuses by individuals, the sole agency for
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curbing the attempt of one group to benefit at the
expense of another. That way lies the suicide of free-
dom.
We of business wish, for example, to maintain a
wide field open for the enterprising of our people.
History has taught, and the current experience of
other nations confirms, the fact that all the liberties
we cherish are inseparably bound up with this freedom
for the exercise of initiative and ingenuity by indi-
viduals and by voluntary groups in enterprise. And in
it we have found the road to an amazing rise in the
standard of living and to an unparalleled spread of
cultural as well as economic opportunity. Are we will-
ing to abandon that right because we lack foresight
and determination to use our freedom effectively?
J
The Machine Age, with its transformation of our
economic activities, has raised problems that must be
solved. The passing of the present emergency will
intensify those problems. The question wage workers,
managements, and investors must ask themselves, as
individuals and as groups, seems to me clear. Will they
have the wisdom to undertake, in voluntary consulta-
tion and co-operation, with such aid from government
as may be needed, the resolving of the problems that
concern them directly and the public welfare gener-
ally? Or will they resign themselves, with vain pro-
tests, to arbitrary action by government-a method
surely less intelligent and less hopeful than one
designed to reach solutions through the consensus of
representatives of all interests concerned.
Canada
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i
The American people, almost without exception,
wish to make democracy work. The aim of organized
society is the welfare of the men, women and children
who compose it. Through pressure of public opinion
our people can insist that democratic processes be
applied to the solution of their problems. They can
require self-discipline on the part of every economic
interest—whether investors, producers on the farms, or
management and labor in industry and trade-for this
is nothing more than requiring it of themselves. They
can demand the exercise of social responsibility by all
groups as an essential to the maintenance of their
rights.
This democratic procedure will involve continuous
social adjustment. To be effective such adjustment
must be reached by intelligent voluntary co-operation
that anticipates critical situations, not by ill-consid-
ered arbitrary coercion that is extemporized to deal
with such situations after they have developed.
In the long run we shall maintain our rights just
about in proportion as we exercise our responsibili-
ties.
-HOWARD COONLEY,
Former President,
National Association of Manufacturers
C
41
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Validated In Blood
THE BODY AND BONE of American Democracy were
created by the Constitution. The bloodstream was in-
jected in 1791 with the first ten Amendments. With-
out these Amendments, assuring the rights of men, the
American democracy would have been a soulless
machine.
}
*
The Bill of Rights proclaims the sacredness of the
human personality, and the determination to let it
develop and express itself in a freedom bounded only
by democratically enacted curbs against license. What
its guarantees mean to individual men has often been
imperfectly seen by persons complacent in the posses-
sion of them; but in lands beyond the seas we have
been permitted to see clearly what is meant by the
absence of them.
The Bill of Rights expresses a concept the triumph
of which we never dare take for granted. It was inau-
gurated in blood and from time to time it has been
validated in blood. Sometimes the sacrifice falls on the
individual, a martyr to sternly held conviction. Some-
times it falls on a nation, as on that nation now whose
people have pledged themselves to fight on the
42
མཀ་
الا
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•
beaches, in the fields, in the streets rather than submit
to a force which would deprive them of their sacred
freedom.
Whenever the call is made, it must and will be an-
swered; not only by a Patrick Henry shouting, "Give
me liberty or give me death!" but by an Elijah Love-
joy, actually embracing death in the defense of his
freedom to print; not only by a sailor sinking beneath
the torpedo's foam, but by a sheriff defending his
prisoner from a mob. The Bill of Rights must be de-
fended with passion, not passivity.
To hew to this line is particularly hard in a time of
world tumult. In such a time, in the name of "Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity," a Robespierre sent his thousands
to the guillotine. Our own land has known excesses of
intolerance. It may know them again. As this is writ-
ten, our lives and liberties are threatened from without
by a great conflagration. In our own defense we are
building a backfire. A moment's relaxation of our prin-
ciples and we could be consumed by our own flame.
The day the Bill of Rights passes from public rever-
ence, democracy is finished in America. That day falls
the frontier on which sane men and women every-
where are already, in their dreams, building a better
world.
-JAMES M. Cox,
Ex-Governor of Ohio
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상
​A Sacred Stewardship
"IN ADDITION TO HOLDING firmly to our Bill of Rights,
we should formulate a Bill of Duties." This insistence
upon the stewardship of citizenship, urged during the
summer by Vice-President Henry Wallace, in an ad-
dress before the Foreign Policy Association, received
significant response throughout the nation.
One New York State Editor, commented as fol-
lows: "In the totalitarian states citizens have duties
but no rights. Under our democratic system some peo-
ple have mistakenly assumed that they have rights but
no duties." Perhaps there is a bit of exaggeration in
this statement, but there is no doubt that we need in
the United States a nation wide emphasis upon this
Bill of Duties idea.
We have over advertised our rights and sadly neg-
lected our duties. For instance, note the millions of
voters who fail to vote either at the primaries or at
the regular elections. What can be done to make the
careless citizen either use his suffrage or face the dan-
ger of forfeiture?
But it must not be forgotten that the fathers who
wrote the Bill of Rights also included in their vision a
44
:
Bill of Duties. Accordingly the Constitution gives
Congress the right to impose federal taxes, and, in
times of emergency, to place drafts upon the person
and property of citizens.
Yet, as Mr. Wallace declared, there ought to be in
this country a greatly enlarged emphasis upon the idea
that American citizenship is a sacred stewardship.
With a great price our liberties were bought, so that
all of us need to revalue this trust. Especially is this
true of both labor and capital.
At this time of national emergency, when the
shadow of totalitarianism is lengthening across the
world, certainly one of the problems facing all serious
minded Americans is how can we maintain the proper
equilibrium between the rights and duties of citizens.
In the light of our priceless heritage, a first step
would be for each American-worthy of the name-
to sit down and formulate his own Bill of Duties!
-RALPH SPAULDING CUSHMAN,
Methodist Bishop,
St. Paul, Minnesota
P
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• ;
Renew The Covenant
THE HIGH LIGHT in the life of our young Republic was
the belated incorporation of the Bill of Rights into
the American Constitution. It is good to know that all
Americans are being given the opportunity on Decem-
ber 15th of this year to renew their covenant with
the fathers whose wisdom made that document both
the pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by
night for the guidance of the new conception of gov-
ernment and the American way of life in the West-
ern Hemisphere. Naturally, as a citizen of North
Carolina I have a peculiar interest in celebrating the
incorporation of freedom of religion, freedom of
assembly, freedom of speech and freedom of the press
as an integral part in the chart of the American Ship
of State. In my judgment the renunciation for a time
by North Carolina of enjoying the blessings of the
Government to which its people had contributed so
generously in blood and treasure, until the Bill of
Rights had been incorporated into the greatest instru-
ment ever struck off by the hand of free men, consti-
tuted a devotion to principle not surpassed in Ameri-
can annals.
Catwal
Agropołudnie tal for best at w
Z
46
Ten States had ratified the Federal Constitution
when the North Carolina Convention met at Hills-
boro, July 21, 1788-enough of the States to organize
and set the new Government in operation under
Washington. After long debate the opponents of rati-
fication declared their firm purpose to incorporate the
Bill of Rights into the Constitution before they would
enter the union. By a vote of 184 to 84 the Conven-
tion virtually said, "Anxious as we are to take our seat
in the structure of the new republic of our dreams,
the liberties set forth in the Bill of Rights are so essen-
tial to the realization of that dream that we demand
their incorporation before we ratify."
Those early patriots feared that Federalists might
not incorporate the freedoms so dear to their hearts
if every colony entered the union before the Bill of
Rights was a part of the instrument. They sacrificed
their long-cherished desire to take part in the organi-
zation of the new government and their laudable ambi-
tion to be represented in official position. But above
and beyond all other considerations their hearts' desire
was for religious freedom and the other freedoms that
could be safeguarded only by the adoption of the Bill
of Rights. Some of them had felt the stings of religious
persecution, and they highly resolved that old world
intolerance should be outlawed in the very beginning
by the young Republic. No sacrifice was too great-
even the renunciation of public office with the honors
and emoluments thereunto appertaining.
As soon as this chart of liberty was made an in-
+
47
1
tegral part of the Constitution, the North Carolina
Convention hastened to ratify and to take its seat with
its neighbors in the new Government. Naturally the
important offices had been filled and North Carolina's
voice in high official station was lost for a time. But
by self-sacrifice it had insured the freedom dearer than
all else for itself and other commonwealths.
Because of this record, North Carolina will be first
in celebrating and in rejoicing in its early devotion to
the essential liberties of a democracy and will join
with all other Americans in an organized warfare
against any lessening of devotion to the principles in
the Bill of Rights and any intolerance or denial of its
blessings to any people.
-JOSEPHUS Daniels,
United States Ambassador to Mexico
48
:
The Measure Of Americanism
THE BILL OF RIGHTS, what is it? Is it history, is it
rhetoric, is it merely an ancient document entitled to
respect because of age; or is it a living force in Ameri-
can life? Did American liberty begin with the adop-
tion of the Bill of Rights, or is it a shield erected to
protect the liberty Americans had won? What is the
theory of government that makes the Bill of Rights
necessary? To whom are its commandments ad-
dressed? Put these questions to any reasonably intelli-
gent man and his answers will give you a true meas-
ure of his understanding of Americanism.
Undoubtedly the Bill of Rights is history, ancient
history, for it draws on long centuries of experience
of men and their rulers. Unquestionably it is rhetoric,
stirring rhetoric, because of the great ideas its sen-
tences expound. The whole of the American theory
of government-human equality, popular sovereignty,
personal liberty-can be found in the Preamble of the
Declaration of Independence and in the Bill of Rights.
So it is that when the founders of America framed
their government they did not go hat in hand to some
superior sovereign begging for an expansion of their
49
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',
rights and liberties, for these they and their fathers
had already won. They did not need a Bill of Rights
either to create their rights or to protect one citizen
against another. They adopted it solely to protect
themselves against any abuse by the government they
had established. Read the Bill of Rights as contained
in the first ten amendments to the Constitution and
mark how every paragraph is a prohibition, a com-
mand that this or that shall not be done. Congress
“shall make no law" prohibiting the free exercise of
religion, or abridging freedom of speech or of the
press. The right to bear arms "shall not be" infringed.
The right of the people to be secure against unreason-
able searches and seizures "shall not be" violated. And
so on, and so on.
24
So it is behind the shield of these and like com-
mandments in the constitutions of the several States
that the American people have enjoyed for a century
and a half free worship, a free press, free assembly,
freedom from search, freedom from self-incrimina-
tion, freedom from the confiscation of property, from
arbitrary arrest and imprisonment and all the other
rights of free and independent men. They have en-
joyed these things because the Bill of Rights denies
the power of any government-the one set up in
1789 or any other-or of any majority, no matter how
large, to invade the native rights of a single citizen.
There was a day when the absence of such rights
in other countries could fill an American with incred-
ulous pity. Yet today, over vast reaches of the earth,
50
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"
governments exist that have robbed their citizens by
force or fraud of every one of the essential rights
American citizens still enjoy. Usage blunts surprise,
yet how can we regard without amazement and horror
the depths to which the subjects of the totalitarian
powers have fallen?
The lesson is plain for all to read. No men enjoy
freedom who do not deserve it. No men deserve free-
dom who are unwilling to defend it. Americans can
be free so long as they compel the governments they
themselves have erected to govern strictly within the
limits set by the Bill of Rights. They can be free so
long, and no longer, as they call to account every gov-
ernmental agent and officer who trespasses on these
rights to the smallest extent. They can be free only if
they are ready to repel, by force of arms if need be,
every assault upon their liberty, no matter whence it
comes.
-JOHN W. DAVIS
51
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Vital Forces Of Humanity
IT IS PARTICULARLY significant that the 150th anniver-
sary of the adoption of the Bill of Rights should come
at a time when the freedom of nations and men is
again in the world crucible. During recent years the
forces of political atavism have destroyed the rights
of the individual in nation after nation abroad. Here
in our own country, threats have been made against
our traditional theories of equality and the dignity of
the individual. It is fitting, therefore, that in observing
the 150th anniversary of the Bill of Rights, we con-
sider again its meaning and dedicate ourselves anew
to the achievement of its enduring purpose.
It was a sign of the health of the young Republic
that, in spite of the great ideals enunciated in the Dec-
laration of Independence and the original Constitu-
tion, the Bill of Rights was adopted further to clarify
the rights of the individual and the States. This was
evidence that the young Republic was a moving force
for freedom. So long as a government remains respon-
sive to its people and pursues a course designed to pro-
mote the healthy growth of individual character, that
government is a bulwark of civilization against the
Sig
52
inroads of totalitarianism. More than that, it is an
aggressive force for freedom everywhere.
Freedom of religion, speech and the press, the right
of assembly and all the other civil rights guaranteed
in the first ten amendments to the Constitution are
vital forces of humanity. A government based on such
a philosophy has right on its side. It must prevail
against the false philosophies of irreligion, nationalism,
class creeds and an individual life that amounts to
slavery.
Only
on a foundation which recognizes the freedom
and well-being of the individual can a lasting and just
peace settle
upon this troubled world. By re-affirming
the principles embodied in the Bill of Rights, we here
in America can give new hope to the oppressed peoples
abroad and help establish a better world.
-THOMAS E. DEWEY,
District Attorney of
the County of New York
Magg
53
To Check Intolerance
}
I DO NOT BELIEVE there can be any equivocation as to
the rights of the American people to think, to speak,
and to act as free agents.
If at any time it is the purpose of certain groups or
individuals to destroy the Constitution or any of its
Amendments, it would seem to me that we as a people
should combat them in the open air of public knowl-
edge rather than in the dank and fetid atmosphere of
underground activity.
I would be in favor of legislation which would
make it obligatory for any individual or group indulg-
ing in any kind of propaganda to register with the
Government a complete roster of its personnel and a
full statement of the source of its finances. Certainly
no organization that is not subversive should object
to such publicity.
But to begin denying the guarantees of the Bill of
Rights to anyone, whatever his intentions, is to open
the flood gates of possible persecution. It is so easy for
any element of the people to accuse of subversive
activity any other element with whom they do not
agree, and were it not for the legal guarantees of the
i
54
L
Bill of Rights, there would exist no instrument to
check intolerance.
22
I am fully aware of the danger to our national unity
and security which is presented by those who use the
democratic guarantees of freedom and the democratic
processes to achieve anti-democratic ends. However,
there are specific municipal, State and Federal laws re-
lating to actual overt acts of treason, sabotage, etc.,
under which prosecution can be instituted. I believe
that in the combating of subversive activities we must
take full advantage of such laws as well as full advan-
tage of the spotlight of publicity which can be thrown
on subversive elements. We can also make an honest
effort to rid our nation of those social and economic
ills which are still to be found in it and which all sub-
versive elements use to create disaffection and dissen-
sion.
The Bill of Rights is the lifeblood of our freedom.
Let us not tamper with it.
-MELVYN DOUGLAS
~
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.*
The Protecting Mantle
THE FEDERAL CONSTITUTION Which was adopted in
Philadelphia in 1787 has been described as the most
important document emanating at one time from the
brain of man. This Constitution sets up the govern-
ment of the United States of America and furnishes
the foundation and framework of what is now the
greatest nation on earth.
The first ten Amendments to the Constitution,
which have been so expressedly declared the Bill of
Rights, are the protecting mantle, under the Consti-
tution, for the people of the country. It was the first
expression put into written form by any nation for the
protection of the individual rights of its citizens.
It is a remarkable thing, however, that while the
Constitution sets up the organized government and.
these Amendments protect the citizen under that gov-
ernment, yet there is no expression, either in the Con-
stitution or elsewhere, of the citizen's duty to that
government. The obligation of the citizen to his gov-
ernment is equal to that of the government to the citi-
zen. He must be the individual guarantor to the na-
tion of similar rights to all citizens of that nation so
}
;
G
#
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:
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:
that the nation's guarantee to him will be fulfilled.
While no one born in the United States is obliged
to take an oath of allegiance to the government under
the Constitution and the Amendments, yet everyone
born elsewhere, seeking citizenship, takes that oath.
This places a higher degree of responsibility on the
American-born citizen because it is his duty to show,
by example to all others, his devotion and allegiance
to his government under its Constitution. It is this
spirit of responsibility which carries with it tolerance
and understanding and makes the real value of Ameri-
can citizenship.
In upholding our Constitution, we must bear and
forbear with each other. The more fortunately placed
of our citizens must show that consideration to the
least of them in order that the guarantee to all shall
be equal. With that spirit of brotherhood and com-
mon interest and tolerance, our actions toward each
other will enhance our citizenship and strengthen our
united nation.
-MICHAEL FRANCIS DOYLE
4
好
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Rights-Not Privileges
TO ME, OUR BILL OF RIGHTS is the formal recognition of
civilized man's struggle for the dignity of his soul, his
conscience and his person.
1
When first the Bill came into being it was a re-
affirmation of man's faith in the way of life he had
been taught was his, as a component part of a society
whose government was responsible to him and his fel-
lows alone. Today it is a constant and indestructible
reminder that we, the free citizens of a free nation,
possess equal opportunity to make of ourselves what
we will, within the limits of laws which representa-
tives of our own choosing legislate in our behalf.
Furthermore, it is the hope of the hapless, the shield
of the unfortunate, the least of whom can claim cer-
tain indisputable freedoms.
It is, truly, a Bill of Rights and not a bill of privi-
leges. It is that distinction which gives to the indi-
vidual his strength and integrity. It is his assurance of
his right to aspire. It is the sanctuary to which he can
retire, safe against any unwarranted trespassing upon
his conception of dignity and decency and political
security. It is a proclamation of man's humanity to
man.
-DOUGLAS FAIRBANKS, JR.
!
;
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बहुच
The Paths Must Be Kept Open
THE THIRTEEN COLONIES justified their claim to a place
among the nations of the world by insisting on "the
pursuit of happiness" as "an inalienable right." Two
thousand years before Jefferson expressed the under-
lying faith of our American society, Pericles, who was
not a stranger to Jefferson's spirit, revealed "the secret
of happiness to be freedom." To "secure the Blessings
of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity" the thirteen
States formed the Union. The Constitution is thus an
instrument of government under which the pursuit of
happiness through freedom may be realized. The Bill
of Rights, as an organic part of our scheme of
govern-
ment, was not intended as a blueprint of Utopia. Writ-
ten into the Constitution to guard against the recur-
rence of well-defined historic grievances, the Bill of
Rights was the product not of rhetoric but of experi-
ence. The early American statesmen were alive to
abuses of arbitrary power which have their seeds in
the nature of man and may thrive under any form
of government. And so they summarized their ex-
perience and made explicit the conditions of freedom
-a rational and disinterested procedure when men
\
*
59
are accused of crime, prohibition of "unreasonable
searches and seizures," freedom of thought and of
conscience, and the amplest opportunity for express-
ing both.
It misconceives however the inner significance of
the Bill of Rights to think of it as constituting merely
technical provisions of a legal code. An independent,
learned, courageous and imaginative judiciary is in-
dispensable to a free society, and especially to a fed-
erated democracy. But one does not minimize the role
of courts in acknowledging that, for the ultimate pro-
tection of the liberties of the people, it is not sufficient
to rely on the specialized and very limited function of
the judiciary. Litigation is, as it were, the pathological
aspect of society. Health comes from the thoughts and
feelings permeating its atmosphere and guiding its
everyday actions. The real import of the Bill of
Rights is the conception of man's dignity and destiny
which underlies it, and which can effectively be vindi-
cated only if it controls public feeling and inspires all
measures of government.
Lincoln magnificently illustrates that Nature herself
is democratic. The arrangements of society should not
thwart her purposes. Tolerances for dissident views is
not an exercise in benignity but a form of practical
wisdom. Truth is an eternal chase. The history of
man's endeavor to achieve truth shows the displace-
ment of yesterday's dogma by today's skepticism. And
today's folly may prove itself tomorrow's wisdom.
The paths to the City of God must be kept open.
$
60
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t
The spirit of man and the means for achieving its
glories can never be captured and confined by words
and formulas. But the framers of the Bill of Rights
put into enduring language the conditions essential for
the "Blessings of Liberty" to themselves and their
pos-
terity. By celebrating their wisdom in this formulation
we invigorate our own strength to maintain that lib-
erty. The Founders of the Republic knew, as did Per-
icles, that if the secret of happiness was freedom "the
secret of freedom was a brave heart." Let us be worthy
of their example.
1
-FELIX FRANKFURTER,
Associate Justice,
United States Supreme Court
*
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No Greater Treasure
}
RECIPIENTS OF GREAT GIFTS too often regard them
carelessly or indifferently. It is characteristic of a
people that too often they fail to look unto the rock
whence they are hewn. A world catastrophe tends to
"stab them broad awake." Such a catastrophe faces
the free peoples of America today. Privileges and
blessings long enjoyed have been threatened and a
startled nation is called upon to reappraise its virtues
and its vices. Few have heeded or regarded with rev-
erent devotion their great inheritance in the Constitu-
tion and particularly in the Bill of Rights. The rights
have been assumed without due regard for the cost
and sacrifice which they entail. They are accepted,
frequently abused by prodigal and unthinking men
and women.
-
What do these accepted freedoms mean to us? Can
they be maintained in perpetuity unless we are ready
and prepared to defend them at any cost? Can they
be transmitted to our children unimpaired if we permit
elements within or threatening influences from with-
out to treat them with contempt or to violate their
rich provisions?
Apart from my Christian convictions and indeed as
|
62
an expression of these convictions, I regard my citi-
zenship under the Constitution and Bill of Rights as a
treasure and as a blessing greater than that enjoyed
by any citizen of the world, ancient or modern. Free-
dom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom of wor-
ship, and what comes to me through freedom of the
press, constitute a heritage of incalculable value. They
lay upon me responsibilities and obligations that call
for all that I possess of moral courage and Christian
virtue. They compel me to be considerate of the rights
and privileges of others. They prescribe generosity,
kindness and tolerance in all human relationships.
They admonish me that here in free America every
citizen is a sovereign whose privileges cannot be in-
fringed by any act of mine. While they accord me
freedom of speech they do not permit me to employ
it to the hurt of others. While they permit me to enjoy
freedom of worship, they inculcate in me a charitable
attitude towards those whose traditions and training
cause them to pursue a way different from my own.
It is a Bill of Rights that, without discrimination or
favor, guarantees to every citizen, life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness. Any attempted abuse or infringe-
ment of these rights, any attempt to put restraints
their free and consistent exercise should deny to
the offending citizen the privileges they confer.
upon
-JAMES E. FREEMAN,
Bishop of Washington
Protestant Episcopal Church
63
Guaranties Against Tyranny
MEMORIES OF THE "days before Hitler" come to us
all, now and then with startling vividness, illuminating
whole areas of faith and experience. Such is my mem-
ory of the
of the way in which I used to accept the truth of
the often quoted phrase: "Eternal vigilance is the
price of liberty."
This was, it seemed to me, true as a matter of
course. But not especially important for me and my
generation. For who was there, in the days before the
rise of Fascism and Nazism, to challenge liberty?
Especially in this country?
And what was liberty, after all? Except something
to be talked about by commencement orators, and
Congressmen when their remarks were extended in
the record, and politicians who felt themselves slipping
and had to wave the flag frantically to protect their
own fortunes?
"Liberty" connoted all the things we took for
granted in our American life, all the things our fathers
had to fight to gain, but which we accepted just as we
did the right to live, and breathe free air, and go about
our several businesses in peace.
Who ever got excited about those rights and privi-
leges? They were unchallenged, had come to us with-
out effort, and were no more regarded than good
health. And the only person who values good health
64
WHERE TO
}
•
is the man who hasn't got
got it!
So that's how it was with the Bill of Rights. Fine!
"The cornerstone of our liberties!" And how's your
golf game? Or let's have another drink.
But today-how vastly is the situation changed.
When a large part of the world, which enjoyed a
measure of individual freedom much the same as ours,
has had all its rights and privileges taken away from
it, they become tremendously important to us. They
are "more precious than rubies," "and all the things
thou canst desire are not to be compared" to them.
Now we realize why our fathers, who refused to
submit to the tyranny of irresponsible rulers, or to
yield control of their lives and fortunes to a govern-
ment of others' choosing (or to any government)
fought not only for the certainties of the Constitution,
but for the guaranties of the Bill of Rights.
There are assured to us the freedoms for the indi-
vidual without which there can be no freedom for the
state, no social good, no promise of progress toward
the fuller and better life for all.
And we value them the more now that we see them
not only challenged and assailed in other parts of the
world, but threatened by a tendency on the part of
our own government to follow a course which runs
counter to the way of life which has made our coun-
try what it is.
“Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty!"
-FRANK E. GANNETT
.
65
Truths For Our Time
WHEN WE ESPOUSE Democracy as the best form of
government and the Bill of Rights as the surest guar-
antee of our liberties, it is not an arbitrary insistence
upon a set of values merely because they were chosen
by our fathers a century and a half ago. Americans
least of all are tradition-bound. Readily, nay eagerly,
we change styles of dress, housing, locomotion and
communication; surely we should not continue a form
government merely because our fathers adopted it.
If we espouse the Bill of Rights today, it is because
we today, viewing the world of our time, and observ-
ing the other kinds of governments which are being
tried, have come to our own conclusions that ours is
the best for the reason that it offers the most likely
means for the attainment of the most worthwhile
boons for the largest number of the people.
of
**
It must be recognized, however, that the difference
between empty phrases and precious principles is to
be measured by the price men are willing to pay. To
the generation which fashioned the Constitution and
the Bill of Rights, these meant much because they cost
them much in comfort, blood, life itself. For our gen-
T
66
eration these principles will take on a vitality of mean-
ing in proportion to the danger by which they are
perilled from within and from without, and the price
we may have to pay for their preservation.
Much is being said about the risk of losing our free-
dom in the process of defending it. The converse of
the proposition, however, needs also to be recognized,
namely, that in the face of Nazi ambitions of world
hegemony there is the danger of losing our present
form of government, if not our sovereignty-and with
it our freedom altogether, if we arbitrarily refuse to
yield a fraction of our prerogatives in order to safe-
guard the general area of our liberties.
What is to be the guiding formula? Obviously, as
much freedom as is consistent with the main task. Who
is to define the amount and determine the consistency?
There can be no arbitrary definition. Every proposal
to curtail any of the prerogatives of a free Democracy
must be vigilantly scrutinized. We must be realistic
enough, however, to distinguish between freedom as
a whole and freedom in particular details. There is a
hierarchy of values. For the sake of safeguarding
the topmost values, those in the lower scale may have
to be temporarily yielded. Otherwise, by arbitrary,
undiscriminating rigidity, we are in danger of losing
the power to defend our liberties as a whole. To urge
such a policy would be a counsel of unwitting naiveté
or malicious treachery.
For us Americans the democratic way of life is not
a device made to order for the purpose of expansion,
}
67
"
conquest and war. It is our ennobling heritage which
has been tested in a century and a half of national
policy, through war and peace, and has not been
found wanting.
The history of the United States is the most exciting
of all national annals. Ours was a New World in more
than one sense. It was a newly discovered continent.
It was colonized by men and women who by their
coming to the new shores broke with their own past
and with many of the traditions of the old society.
They and their offspring were psychologically as well
as physically free to re-evaluate the social and poli-
tical conventions of the Old World. They kept what
they deemed worthwhile and rejected what they con-
sidered obsolete.
This republic of ours was founded with a purpose
and a mission, consisting both of protest and affirma-
tion. These were not an afterthought or a post facto
rationalization, but an initial propelling motivation.
In the world of stress and challenge in which we
live, when the ideas and ideals of Democracy are ridi-
culed and repudiated in foreign lands and spurned by
some who dwell within our own shores, they derive
new cogency from the menace of the anti-democratic
forces. They are not dead letters but living flaming
truths for our time.
We need to recapture the spiritual excitement, the
dynamics of idealism, which moved the founders of
this nation. Our shining armor has tarnished with the
passage of a century and a half, but only the surface
68
:
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has become dulled. With little effort it can be made
bright again. We need only to be reminded. The metal
is sound, and uncorroded.
We are being told that the new order which threat-
ens to dominate Europe today is a "revolution." No
one can predict how far it will go or how long it will
endure. Sooner or later it must collapse, because it
shackles the mind and chains the spirit of man.
Against that kind of "revolution" we Americans set
our way of life conceived in a revolution which was
marked by the unshackling of fetters which had
chained the human spirit.
As soon as we become sufficiently aware of what
we have at stake in the present world crisis we shall
realize that no sacrifice is too high a price to pay.
-ISRAEL GOLDSTEIN,
Chairman Jewish Section, Inter-faith
Committee for Aid to the Democracies
A
1
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1
ļ
The Rights Of Labor
IN 1935 WITH PASSAGE by Congress of the National
Labor Relations Act new meaning was given to the
freedom of the individual guaranteed under the Con-
stitution of the United States. The right of workers
to join trade unions of their own choosing without
fear of discharge or other discrimination by employers
has been safeguarded and made a reality by the Na-
tional Labor Relations Act. Labor has thus been en-
abled for virtually the first time to deal with employ-
ers on terms of equality. With the destruction of de-
mocracy in so many European countries, it is of prime
importance that Americans retain labor's "Bill of
Rights"; that the right to organize for collective bar-
gaining be preserved and strengthened; that the right
to strike which distinguishes free labor from captive
labor remains unimpaired. We can not have freedom
of thought and action otherwise. A strong labor move-
ment is better able to meet its responsibilities in our
democracy than is a cowed and weakened body of
workers.
-ELINORE M. HERRICK,
Regional Director,
National Labor Relations Board
70
驴
​!
}
A Time To Remember
THE UNITED STATES BILL OF RIGHTS is the supreme
charter in our time of human liberty. It is the pledge
and guarantee in this country-and ultimately, we may
pray, in the world at large-of man's inherent right
to think his own thoughts, to speak his own ideas,
to publish his own opinions, to worship his own God,
and to assemble with his fellows to promote his own
causes.
It is easy to proclaim these rights, and easy and
pleasant to practise them ourselves. The difficulty
comes in permitting others to practise them-those,
for example, whom we do not like, or whom we deem
dangerous to the best interests and perhaps the very
safety of the community. Yet it is in the exercise of
these rights by the humblest and most hated among
us that this charter of human liberty is alone truly
vindicated.
It is to be noted that the Bill of Rights is not cum-
bered by any restrictions, or reservations, or excep-
tions. It does not say that the rights specified shall be
suspended in the case of Negroes, or Jews, or Com-
munists, or Jehovah's Witnesses, or aliens, or other
!
71
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}
groups whom some men dislike or fear. It does not
provide that the rights specified shall be abrogated in
times deemed perilous to established interests and in-
stitutions. It does not even reserve the rights specified
to periods of peace. It states flatly that the rights
specified in the Bill shall not be abridged. This means,
according to the Supreme Court of the United States,
speaking in the Milligan Case after the Civil War:
"The Constitution of the United States is a law
for rulers and people, equally in war and in peace,
and covers with the shield of its protection all classes
of men, at all times, and under all circumstances. No
doctrine involving more pernicious consequences
was ever invented by wit of man than that any of
its provisions can be suspended during any of the
great exigencies of government."
This is a good time in which to remember these
things.
-JOHN HAYNES HOLMES,
Chairman, Board of Directors,
American Civil Liberties Union
i
72
,
་
A Tremendous Undertaking
I SOMETIMES THINK that I would have given all the
wealth of this great hemisphere if I could have been
one of that little band that went out to the field of
Runnymede in 1215 and extracted from King John
that wonderful collection of human liberties, known
as Magna Charta. After liberty had been banished from
the world for a thousand years, I repeat, if I could
have had the wonderful privilege of being one of that
band that thus took the first step back toward human
freedom-the first step in that 500-year struggle for
Anglo-Saxon liberty-I would have parted with all
the wealth of this Western Hemisphere. And I want
to see some of that same spirit that finally culminated
in our own country in the Revolution and the struc-
ture of our free government revived. . . .
We have carried the experiment of self-government
further than it has ever been carried in the history of
the human race, and yet it remains an experiment. If
in this undertaking we should fail, if our civilization
should be unable to cope with that age-old problem of
self-government, I doubt if it will ever be undertaken
again in the future.
.
73
1
✓
***
So we have the tremendous undertaking today of
rebuilding more securely, along political and economic
lines, our relationships with the other nations. I think
we ought to build upon the solid and broad founda-
tions of justice, equality, and friendship. I think, too,
that the more we visualize those broader relationships,
both political and economic, that should be restored,
keeping at all times within the limitations of our tradi-
tions and our Constitution, the greater service we will
render to ourselves and to other peoples.
-CORDELL HULL,
United States Secretary of State
74
Rights Must Be Defended
WHEN, IN 1787, Jefferson, who was American Min-
ister in Paris, received a copy of the draft of the Con-
stitution, he was startled to see that it contained no
Bill of Rights. To Jefferson, as well as to many another
American democrat, that made no sense. A Constitu-
tion without a Bill of Rights was like a gun without
ammunition. A Constitution that did not specifically
guarantee the basic rights of the individual was not
worth the paper it was written on. "A bill of rights,"
Jefferson said grimly, "is what the people are entitled
to against every government on earth.” And enlight-
ened opinion throughout America agreed with him.
Today many Americans are inclined to forget that
the Bill of Rights that was finally and permanently
grafted upon the Constitution entailed a long struggle
of about two years. We have preserved those rights
over a period of a century and a half because our
forefathers have always been willing to fight for them.
Rights, especially such precious ones as those that
protect our conscience, our opinion, and our physical
freedom, are never automatic like a reflex, or God-
given like rain. Rights have to be carefully cherished,
75
:
jealously guarded, and staunchly defended. Rights, no
matter how frequently they may be repeated in the
statute books, can die of neglect. They can expire as
the result of indifference or cowardice. A dramatic
illustration of this is the case of the German Republic
where the people were either unwilling or unable to
defend their freedom. They are now paying for their
neglect by untold misery. France furnishes, I think,
another example of indifference and neglect. Too
many Frenchmen, alas, although sincere democrats at
heart, came to believe that their rights and their free-
dom would defend themselves; in a crisis they were
not ready to lay down their lives for their cherished
heritage. Now France is crushed and enslaved.
There is a powerful lesson in this for us Americans.
We have fought to obtain our liberties. We have
fought to preserve our liberties. We will fight to keep
them. We Americans know that the price of freedom
is still eternal vigilance. We also know that without
liberty-without a Bill of Rights-life is not worth the
trouble. We Americans love life, and we will see to it
that it is not lived on our knees but on our feet.
-HAROLD L. ICKES,
United States Secretary of the Interior
I
76
The Condition Of Democracy
NOT MANY YEARS AGO it was easy to find advanced
political thinkers who questioned the desirability of
any bill of rights. Did not the original English Bill of
Rights root in the conception that the individual needed
a sphere of his own, immune to the attacks of the
monarch, regarded as a will possibly above, possibly
below that of the generality, but in any event sepa-
rate from it? With the triumph of the democracy,
what need had the individual for protection against
the government, representing himself?
There is no advanced thinker who talks this way
nowadays. We have seen in Russia, Italy, and Ger-
many what life is like for the individual who has no
Bill of Rights to defend him. The will of the majority
offers no protection to the individual belonging to
the minorities. We have been compelled to recognize
that the conventional conception of the minority, as
a group differing in no essentials from the majority
and which may at any time become the majority, is
unrealistic. The problem of today is one of the rights
of members of persistent minorities-religious minori-
ties like the Catholics, Jews, Quakers, Mormons, Free
77
Thinkers; racial and national minorities such as abound
on the borders of every European state and are also
to be found abundantly in America; political and eco-
nomic minorities, such as the Reds, the liberals, and the
reactionaries, organized labor and the bourgeoisie.
Without a bill of rights no minority is secure against
persecution. No individual can be sure that his par-
ticular group will not find itself in the position of a
proscribed minority. Our lives, our liberties, our hap-
piness are at the mercy of the squalls and flurries of
opinion, unless we are adequately protected by a bill
of rights and a truly independent judiciary.
A bill of rights is in one sense a curb upon democ-
racy. But in another sense it is the condition of the
permanence of democratic institutions. No democracy
can long exist if one group after another may be
thrust into the position of a minority to be extirpated.
Greek democracy perished for want of a bill of rights
insuring a modicum of security for the individual.
Russia and Germany are modern examples of polities
inadequately equipped with a bill of rights, hence
devastated by recurring purges and the enforced order
of dictatorship.
-ALVIN JOHNSON,
Director,
The New School of Social Research
78
=
For All Men
.
INTOLERANCE BROUGHT about the holocaust which now
threatens the world.
The people of the United States have pledged their
efforts to see that this threat is removed. They believe
in the Bill of Rights not only for themselves but for
all of those who live on this earth.
They look forward with hope and conviction to
the day when intolerance and the forces which create
it will have been completely eradicated.
-JESSE JONES,
United States Secretary of Commerce
**
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}
•
A
Beacons To The World
THE ANNIVERSARY of the adoption of the Bill of Rights
as a part of the Constitution recalls to mind how the
Bill got only late into the Constitution as well as the
significance it now has there for life and liberty.
Those who made the Constitution had seen during
the period from 1776 to 1787 such weakness of na-
tional government that in their desire for "a more
perfect union" they over-stressed the institutional as-
pect in the structure they created, with consequent
threat to personality and freedom, on the one hand,
and neglect of the proper methods of effecting intel-
ligent social change, on the other. The Bill of Rights
was thus put into the Constitution four years later in
order to correct this over-emphasis on the institutional
and safeguard the essential interests otherwise threat-
ened.
The Bill of Rights means then at bottom the reas-
sertion of essential democracy along two complemen-
tary lines. The first is the safeguarding of human per-
sonality, at once source and end of human rights, as
over against the natural dangers inherent in the ever
necessary habit-institutionalizing aspect and tendency
I
80
of life. The second is the safeguarding of free discus-
sion and inquiry as the indispensable means for main-
taining the continual adequacy of our cultural con-
tent and institutional machinery.
Institutions as the patterns of effectual human in-
teraction are essential to the development and ex-
pression of human life and personality. Habits fix these
helpful patterns in men for more effective intercourse.
Institutions and habits come thus initially into being
in answer to prevailing conditions. They may, there-
fore, as conditions change, go out of date and be-
come harmful instead of helpful. Continual revision
of institutions is accordingly necessary to keep them
abreast of needs and conditions. But habit works to
oppose revision and especially so where the out-of-
date institution protects vested interests.
It is under such circumstances that the Bill of
Rights best serves, namely to protect those who are
foremost to sense some unnecessary evil and seek ap-
propriate institutional changes to remedy it. With en-
trenched habit and privilege supporting the status
quo, those who advocate such change may meet not
only opposition but even suppression and at times
persecution besides, unless and until the Constitution
through the courts brings the protecting Right into
effective play. So the Bill works in our country,
and never perhaps better than now.
But our Bill of Rights reaches in influence beyond
the boundaries of our own country. In these evil
days, when human rights are cruelly denied over so
81
much of the world, these Rights stand out, with those
of Great Britain, as beacons to the world to stir the
hopes and guide the thinking of the distressed peo-
ples, to hold up before them the ever continuing pos-
sibility of life and liberty based on justice and respect
for human personality. When this war shall come to
an end and Hitlerism is finally destroyed, the sub-
stance of our Bill of Rights must furnish the founda-
tion for a new and better society, a society in which
all men are treated as persons on terms of ethical
equality, entitled to share effectively in making the
policies that rule them, protected in their rights as
free men to think and speak and vote each as his
own mind and conscience shall direct him. Thus the
Bill can and must work elsewhere, and never perhaps
more urgently so than now.
-WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK,
Professor Emeritus, Teachers College,
Columbia University
82
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EXTENDERS IN TEST THEY CONTRITIONE
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A Call To Duty
EQUALITY BEFORE THE LAW and civil and religious lib-
erty are inalienable rights guaranteed by our Consti-
tution to all. But freedom by law is freedom in prac-
tice only where the law is sustained by public opinion
and the will to sacrifice.
Men talk glibly of democracy as if it were some-
thing that could be bought in the market place-
something to provide soft living and freedom from toil
and danger. That is not the fabric of which true de-
mocracy is made. That is not the democracy for which
men have nobly died. True democracy is an expres-
sion of faith-a vital and dynamic force-a call to duty
from which we do not draw back. Democracy, like
religion, must be supported by a militant faith in the
things that are right and good and just-a faith that
calls for courage and devotion and sacrifice.
That is what American democracy means to most
of us. As someone has truly said, "Our freedoms have
only been loaned to us." They remain our permanent
possession only so long as we show ourselves worthy
of them. We must match privileges with correspond-
ing loyalties. We must impose upon ourselves as a free
83
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I
people voluntary self-discipline, more compelling and
more effective than ruthless decree of dictators.
The United States was founded to assert human
rights. Our Flag means an heroic enterprise of man's
spirit of brotherhood. Our Declaration of Indepen-
dence and the Bill of Rights are compelling expres-
sions of the religious concept of justice and equality.
Men proclaim that America is the greatest and
noblest country of the world. We know that it is.
But America will remain great only if its spirit remains
great. America will remain noble only if its people
have clean hearts and an unshakeable will to stand
for the right and the just, regardless of sacrifice or
risk. Instead of saying, "I am an American and there-
fore I have rights," each one of us should be proud to
say, "Because I am an American, I have a solemn duty
to maintain the ideals of morality and justice for which
America has ever stood and which have been the basis
of our greatness."
-HERBERT H. LEHMAN,
Governor of New York
¦
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4
A Pressing Responsibility
IT IS A STRANGE LAW of life that one never appreciates
the meaning of physical health until one has lost
it in whole or in part. So with social and political or-
ganisms. Only when freedom has been infringed or
lost do most people begin to appreciate its value.
The priceless boon which we enjoy under the Bill
of Rights is something far too many of us take for
granted. Were we more alert to observe world trends,
we would wake with a start to see that almost every-
where such rights have ceased to be. They are founded
upon the Judaeo-Christian concept of man as the crea-
ture of God endowed by him with certain inalienable
rights. It is a significant fact that where that concept
is abandoned the next step seems to be an abandon-
ment of the view of human society upon which the
basic freedoms depend. Our task is to preserve both
and to do it by a realistic method calculated to meet
the spiritual and physical risks of the present crisis.
What are those risks? The first and most dangerous
grows out of the attitude of those Americans who as-
sume that these freedoms are not in need of defense,
that they are self-perpetuating or natural in some au-
85
Days Aqu
tomatic sense.
A further risk is that failing to see their essential
spiritual basis we shall consider them a mere matter
of techniques in jurisprudence.
A third risk is that we shall succumb to extraor-
dinary pressures of this world crisis against human
freedom and destroy it in a mistaken effort to save it.
A fourth risk-balanced over against the third-is
that we should refuse such temporary limitation of
freedom by free consent as is necessary for its total
defense.
To confront these and other dangers is a pressing
responsibility of free government guided by the com-
mon sense of a free people aware of the things which
today menace their heritage.
-HENRY SMITH LEIPER,
Foreign Secretary,
The Federal Council of the
Churches of Christ in America
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DENTAL
1
Freedom-A Holy Word
MY FATHER, A DANISH peasant, chose this country for
his permanent home. Among the qualities of Ameri-
can life which he cherished most, freedom stood at
the top. He thought of the Bill of Rights as a kind
of holy word. One thing I remember well of his rev-
erence: he was accustomed to say that in a country
with a Bill of Rights, no man would ever be required
to become a conspirator; each man could stand in dig-
nity and say his word, whether it be the word of
praise or the word of discontent which seeks improve-
ment; never would he need to seek a subterranean
channel, for the state itself had guaranteed his basic
rights. I can still remember the glow upon his coun-
tenance as he spoke to newly-arrived immigrants con-
cerning this charter for free men.
So I feel also.
A
It has been one of my tasks in recent years to
strive for the defense of American citizens whose civil
rights have been somehow, usually through error or
perversity, impaired. I consider this to be one of the
most important functions I can perform as a citizen.
So long as the arch of freedom remains as the sup-
87
t
C
port for these wide-flung federated states we shall en-
joy the benefits of Democracy. And, if ever that arch
begins to crumble, we shall need to prepare ourselves
for tyranny.
f
-EDUARD C. LINDEMAN,
Professor of Social Philosophy,
New York School of Social Work,
Columbia University
88
کمری
1
&
A Shining Charter
THE BILL OF RIGHTS, as I view it, is like the Constitu-
tion of the United States of which it is essentially a
part, a shining charter for democracy. It is, however,
obviously a goal to be aimed at and by no means as
yet an accomplished mode of procedure. The Bill of
Rights is violated in tens of thousands of cases daily
in this Democracy. Men and women are fined and
jailed without due process of the law because they
are poor or because they are Jews or Mexicans or
Negroes. Nearly every state and particularly the
southern tier violate-by poll tax or literacy tests or
plain shut-outs-the individual right of American citi-
zens to vote in every election.
At the very time when this arsenal of Democracy
is clamoring for skilled workmen, citizens of colored
skin, yellow, brown, or black, are barred from des-
perately needed service. The American Navy and
Marine forces, putting on a powerful drive to recruit
officers and men to man the many ships in building,
refuse citizens of color any right to serve except as
domestics.
In a land devoted to education and to the inalien-
89
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.:
able right of every citizen to learn all that he can
within his capacity, schools for minorities have shorter
terms, worse paid teachers, more dilapidated plants
and less equipment.
What this all tots up to may be summed up in the
comment of an Englishman, a wise man who has
studied at first-hand both Europe and America for
a half century. He says, "The hell that has broken
loose in the world now can be traced directly to mal-
treatment and to mis-treatment of minorities. Hitler
cannot win because he is taking the same tack. I warn
you in the United States that, unless you follow your
Bill of Rights more quickly and more clearly and posi-
tively than you have yet done, you will in fifty years
brew the greatest civil war the world has ever seen."
With all our three billion dollar expenditure for
schools and a several billion dollar expenditure for
churches, the thinking of American boys and girls,
men and women, still lags far behind both their scien-
tific and religious training. Religion declares the
brotherhood of man and the essential worth and dig-
nity of every individual. And yet even the trained
preachers of the church, and to a greater extent their
congregations, violate often the right of freedom of
worship and the concept of brotherhood and per-
sonal worth. Ask most Protestants how they feel
about their brothers, the Catholics and the Jews, the
Christian Scientists, and the Buddhists, and you get
the answer.
Scientists, learned specialists in anatomy, physiol-
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ogy, anthropology, psychology, and education have
proved that there are no fundamental
differ-
group
ences in American citizens and that, therefore, every
child, every man or woman viewed scientifically dif-
fers from other children or men and women only in
his fundamental abilities, interests, attitudes, and skills,
never on the basis of his race, color, or sex. And yet
with all this scientific training the product of our
schools and colleges persist in and spread the notion
that American, Mexican, Chinese, Filipino, Negro
groups are "different.”
Just as the Magna Charta of England was a bill of
rights to protect the nobles from the iron control of
monarchs and as the Magna Charta has had to be rein-
terpreted over and over again to reach down to the
English commoner, so our Bill of Rights in the United
States must be reinterpreted and continuously enlarged
to protect all minorities whatsoever, and to give them
justice.
I was much struck by Vice President Wallace's
point of view and agree with him that a Bill of Duties
must be widely absorbed by the American public
and that for every right there is a duty. I conclude
that the first of these duties is that of every American
citizen who enjoys a right to see to it that every other
citizen enjoys the same right.
-MALCOLM S. MACLEAN,
President, Hampton Institute
91
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Cornerstone Of Our National
Greatness
THE IDEALS OF FREEDOM and respect for the individual
in the life of the Nation have never been expressed
more eloquently or more simply than by George
Washington. In a letter written shortly after his first
inauguration, he said in part, "The citizens of the
United States of America have a right to applaud
themselves for having given to mankind examples of
an enlarged and liberal policy, a policy worthy of
imitation. All possess alike liberty of conscience and
immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that tol-
eration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence
of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exer-
cise of their inherent natural rights. For happily, the
Government of the United States which gives to big-
otry no sanction, to persecution no assistance, requires
only that they who live under its protection should
demean themselves as good citizens, in giving it on
all occasions their effectual support.
"?
"To bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assis-
tance"! That clarion call for brotherhood is deep-
L
92
rooted in our history-a source of our national great-
ness. Three centuries ago we were a haven of refuge
from the intolerance of the Old World. The early
Pilgrims have been joined by representatives of all
the oppressed peoples of the world, and here each
group has given the best in its culture and its racial
stock as its contribution to the America we glory in
today.
Out of their experience, the founders of our Gov-
ernment created the finest instrument for freedom
and tolerance in the history of practical government
-the Constitution.
S
The responsibility for forging this new form of gov-
ernment for democratic life in America was entrusted
to the most astute and experienced leaders in the na-
tion. Years of unhappy experience under colonial gov-
ernment and the Articles of Confederacy had taught
them many valuable lessons. After two years of pro-
found deliberation, that momentous document was at
last ready to be submitted to the States for ratification.
At once the voice of the people made clear that or-
ganization was not enough. While the Constitution,
establishing the new form of government, was ac-
cepted, the people whose government it was demanded
explicit recognition of the fundamental and inalien-
able rights of man. Within a year after all the States
had accepted the Constitution, the first ten amend-
ments were added to give expression to this popular
demand. By this "Bill of Rights," the Spirit of the
American people was breathed into the body of the
•
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law and our great democratic government stirred to
life.
The full implication of the principles of human as-
sociation, thus guaranteed in the fundamental law of
the land, had to be worked out in history. Through
more than a century, and a half, this Bill of Rights
has been a beacon light in our social development. We
have faced the pitfalls of racialism, of sectionalism,
and of economic division, and today this nation,
welded into a unity of life and purpose, is a vital
testimony of the unerring wisdom of our democratic
faith.
One hundred and sixty-five years is not a long
period in the course of history and yet the United
States has grown from a loosely federated group of
thirteen little colonies on the eastern seaboard to a
great nation, ranking foremost in standards of living,
in scientific achievement, and in political freedom.
Materialists may attribute this entirely to a wealth
of natural resources, but that does not explain the
greatness of the American nation. The use of these
resources has been tempered by the various gifts of
personality welded into our common life. But again,
those rich human resources are not enough to explain
American greatness. Conditions of American life have
called upon hidden potentialities in individuals as they
have felt the bracing tonic of hope and reward for
effort. What is it that has given Americans, irrespec-
tive of race, creed, or national origin, this right to
hope and this expectation of reward for devotion to
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the common good? For the answer, we must look to
those fundamental principles on which our national
life is built, as embodied in our Bill of Rights. This
is the framework which has made possible the fullest
utilization of our resources, both natural and human.
This is the safeguard of our rights and liberties which
has released tremendous forces of dynamic energy.
This is the cornerstone of our national greatness.
-PAUL V. MCNUTT,
Administrator,
Federal Security Agency
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The Real Test
IT IS OFTEN SAID that the Bill of Rights is the effective
safeguard of democracy against all threats of totali-
tarian encroachment arising within the body politic;
as long as it remains a part of our basic law, we need
not fear that our cherished freedoms will be destroyed
by the enemies of democracy within our own fron-
tiers. I doubt if this is true. The real test of democracy
is not applied by asking questions about the state-
ments embodied in a nation's constitution or the pres-
ence or absence of ballot boxes and universal suffrage.
If anyone wants to know whether the community,
state or nation, in which he resides, is truly demo-
cratic, let him ask this question: What actually hap-
pens to the member of an unpopular minority when he
dares to speak his mind in opposition to the spokes-
men of the popular majority?
In other words, the Bill of Rights is merely the ver-
bal crystalization of an idea. It is the idea that must
be cherished. Unless its principles are actually prac-
ticed in the daily life of the citizen, whether he be
judge or alderman, governor or president, policeman
or school superintendent, administrator or coordinator,
employer or employee, labor organizer or personnel
officer, commissioner or devoid of any title whatso-
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96
ever, the words and phrases lose their power, democ-
racy decays, and freedom dies.
To put into practice the principles embodied in the
Bill of Rights is increasingly difficult in America these
days, not so much because of the threat of Hitler's
mechanized might as because of the inevitable trend
in the process of organizing mankind into a world
community. The political state is becoming a social-
service state in all countries; preparations for war and
defense only accelerate the process, they have not in-
itiated it. With extension of governmental control
over many individual activities with which the state
had not previously been concerned, there is increased
necessity for the preservation of those fundamental
rights to which the true American holds undying al-
legiance and at the same time a greater strain upon
both his emotions and his intellect as he seeks to main-
tain that loyalty. But regardless of the difficulties that
now beset us, there is no escape from the conclusion:
only as the soul-satisfying principles of our Bill of
Rights are put into effective operation in all depart-
ments of our lives can the age-old paradox of the
individual in society be resolved in terms of adequate
freedom for each person within the limits imposed by
the restraints necessary for coordinating all activity
within the organized community.
-KIRTLEY F. MATHER,
Professor of Geology,
Harvard University
97
[
Heartbeat Of The Republic
1
TAKE AWAY FROM US the guarantees of freedom of
speech, press and assembly; security against unlawful -
search and seizure; due process of law; trial by jury;
and protection against cruel and unusual punishments,
and what would you have? You would have tyranny,
dictatorship, and human enslavement.
No free Government could survive without these
guarantees. Where they have been abrogated, human
misery has consistently followed.
We have these guarantees here and they have kept
us free.
They are contained in the Bill of Rights.
We must never tamper with them nor forget them
because they are the keys to freedom and freedom
is more important than life itself.
Can you imagine a country where you would be
in mortal terror of speaking freely to the members
of your own family? Where listening to certain radio
programs would be a high crime? Where men and
women are shot or sent to concentration camps with-
out the opportunity to speak in their own defense?
Where all newspapers must cravenly agree to a dic-
98
tated policy of Government? Where your every word
and action is under watchful suspicion?
Well, there are countries like that today. But they
haven't a Bill of Rights. The Governments of those
countries have tried to snuff out of men's minds and
hearts the last spark of resistance to despotism. They
will never succeed because man has an insatiable
urge for freedom. Time and again he has shaken off
the bonds of serfdom. Not always has he thereafter
chosen the difficult route to lasting liberty but he
keeps striving in that direction.
Here, 150 years ago, our forefathers fought for
and founded a new Nation. They meant it to be a
brave, self-respecting land of opportunity and equal-
ity. They did their work well.
Today, the economic and cultural superstructure
of freedom built on the firm foundation of the Bill
of Rights is testimony to the world that initiative,
security, and happiness are derivatives of human lib-
erty.
In this fateful year of 1941, our happy way of life
is under challenge by a combination of foreign tyrants
who mislead their people and who thirst for world
domination. Their warped consciences permit them
to despise the god-given rights of their fellowmen.
It is our task to see to it that the forces of Democ-
racy are kept stronger than the forces of Despotism.
Our Bill of Rights means everything to us today.
It is more than a symbol. It is the very heartbeat of
this great Republic. Since it has unfortunately become
Un
......
99
..
necessary to do so, we will keep that heart of America
beating soundly by fortifying it with the greatest me-
chanized military might in all the history of the
world.
We are engaged in the task of keeping ourselves
free. We will never be given a bigger job. We must
do it well.
-JAMES M. MEAD,
United States Senator
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The Danger Of Prejudice
WE IN AMERICA make no extravagant claims for De-
mocracy. Democratic government will not work mir-
acles. However, under our Constitution and under
its first ten Amendments, the integrity of the Ameri-
can individual is better protected than under any other
instrument of government. In fact, for more than a
century and a half, our civil rights have found the
most perfect guarantee against interference yet de-
vised.
Sometimes, due to prejudice and passion, the pro-
visions of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights can
be nullified. Public opinion can often be mobilized to
such an extent that individual citizens fail to express
themselves through fear. Prejudice is the greatest
enemy of our American institutions.
Our whole system of education should be directed
toward one end: that of keeping the minds of our
people free from prejudice, to develop their capacity
for rejecting those doctrines which are injurious to
our institutions and accepting only those which will
strengthen them. Only through freedom of the press,
freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and free-
ΙΟΙ
dom of worship can that capacity be developed. Once
the minds of the majority of the American people
become closed, our Bill of Rights will be of no avail.
-NEWBOLD MORRIS,
President of the Council
of the City of New York
102
Worth Fighting For
J
TO ME THE LIBERTIES guaranteed by our Bill of Rights
represent those things which are most worth sacri-
ficing for, fighting for, and, if necessary, dying for.
They are ideals which liberty-loving citizens are con-
stantly endeavoring to convert into actualities. They
are the spiritual basis of our democracy.
In so-called normal times, when there is relative
freedom from controversy and crisis, there is almost
universal acceptance of the principles of freedom
enunciated in our Bill of Rights. But when dangers
threaten, when important decisions have to be made,
and when there are differences of opinion on impor-
tant issues, the faith of men in these democratic prin-
ciples is tested. Some sincere individual would sus-
pend the Bill of Rights as a means of protecting de-
mocracy in time of crisis. They fail to recognize that
the dangers they would avert and the abuses they
would correct are insignificant as compared with the
disillusionment, the loss of morale, and the destruc-
tion of national unity that would follow such action.
Democracy has an obligation to protect itself against
those who would seek to destroy it, whether they be
103
internal enemies or foreign aggressors. But in its ef-
fort to protect itself democracy must not destroy those
democratic liberties which it is trying to protect. If
we do that we will have lost the battle before it be-
gins. Democratic decisions and democratic actions are
slower than are those of totalitarian states, thus giving
to the latter an initial advantage. It is this fact that
causes many honest and loyal citizens to lose faith
in democratic processes in time of crisis. We must
accept that handicap with full confidence that a united
people true to its faith in the principles that made it
great is more important than the temporary advantage
of a surprise attack.
When the men and the movements that would
destroy democracy have passed from the world scene,
as they must inevitably do, the spirit of democracy
will still live. Our Bill of Rights is the best expression
of that spirit that has ever been fashioned by the
minds and hearts of men. So long as we retain our faith
in those great freedoms incorporated in our Bill of
Rights we will have the morale and the unity of pur-
pose
that are essential to the protection of democracy.
-ALONZO F. MYERS,
Chairman,
Department of Higher Education,
New York University
104
Our Most Precious Possession
WHAT DOES THE Bill of Rights mean to me? In this
150th year since its adoption, the Bill of Rights could
not mean more than it has always meant to me; but
the great fundamental rights to civil liberties which
it established as a part of the Constitution of the
United States are now more appreciated by me, and
surely by all other loyal American citizens, than at
any other period in our lives. This because of the pres-
ent crisis in the world's history, when all civil liber-
ties, even the semblance thereof, are being crushed
and their defenders crucified in other parts of the
world, while we face the threat that the same thing
could happen here. The efficient war machines of dic-
tators of Europe and Asia, whose aggressions have
buried in blood the national and civic rights of the
peoples of other nations, are on the march. These dic-
tators openly declare that their war objectives are to
rule the world by force and establish a slavery to
totalitarianism which proclaims contempt for democ-
racies and for every principle of our most precious
heritage, the American Bill of Rights. Not only by
force of arms, but also by insidious propaganda, de-
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ceit, lies, fraud, sabotage, and every device which
criminal methods can conceive, do they carry on their
purpose to rule the world and destroy human liberties.
The Bill of Rights makes American citizenship the
most precious possession of the individual. This reali-
zation should inspire American unity in preparing to
the utmost our physical and moral strength.
106
The Bill of Rights means the peoples' freedom from
tyranny,' their freedom for self-government, and in the
exercise of that freedom to establish any form of gov-
ernment and any order of economy which the people,
through democratic processes, may determine is best
for the economic and social welfare of themselves and
their posterity.
;
-CULBERT L. OLSON,
Governor of California
1
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་
Our Common Defense
THROUGH A CENTURY and a half of turbulent world his-
tory, the United States Constitution has proved it-
self to be the most effective instrument ever devised
for the protection of the individual citizen. Yet never
before has its strength been felt as in this present
struggle for the preservation of democracy and civi-
lization against the forces of paganism and barbarism.
The strength of America lies in our democratic in-
stitutions. Our democracy, itself, is the strongest kind
of national defense, because it is something that we
are willing to fight for, if necessary. So long as the
Bill of Rights is preserved as an integral part of our
Constitution, neither Nazism nor Communism nor Fas-
cism-no matter how effectively disguised-can gain
a foothold in America.
The right guaranteed by our Constitution of "life,
liberty and the pursuit of happiness," has a deep sig-
nificance. Life in America does not mean mere ex-
istence. It means living. Liberty means not only free-
dom in political matters, it means economic liberty
and religious liberty. We, who believe in the pursuit
Um
107
".
...
of happiness, know that nowhere in the world is the
lot of the people happier than under the American
way of living.
It is well for all of us in these times to reflect on the
content of the Bill of Rights-the right to worship as
we choose, the right to free speech, the right of free
assembly, the right of free press, the right of equal
protection under our laws without class or racial dis-
crimination. Then to compare our heritage, as Ameri-
cans, to the lot of millions of conquered or conquering
people in Europe or Asia today.
If we are to preserve the Bill of Rights, we must
be ever on the watch to fight undemocratic forces.
The saboteurs of democracy do not attack it as such.
Some of them use the slogan "Divide and Rule." They
try to stimulate discord and enmity by attacking some
one phase of our democratic system-the foreign born
citizen, the alien, some race or religion. One group
is encouraged to suspect another-a sly word against
one religion here, a mean phrase against one race
there. But true Americans know that an attack on
any race or religion, on any group or class is an at-
tack on democracy. If the Bill of Rights is to serve
one, it must serve all-the Gentile and the Jew, the
new immigrant and the stranger within our gates, the
worker and the industrialist, the white man and the
Negro.
Full appreciation of the Bill of Rights-its impor-
tance to each one of us as an individual and its signi-
ficance today to Americans and to the world-is one
108
!
of the greatest forces that can be exerted for the com-
mon defense of American ideals and the American
way of life.
-CHARLES POLETTI,
Lieutenant Governor of New York
109
!
The Right Of Sacrifice
THE BILL OF RIGHTS is far more than a collection of
guarantees; it is an exhortation to a quality of citizen-
ship. For democracy to persist, there must persist the
kind of people who established it.
The men who achieved the independence of the
United States recognized freedom as the one quality
in a social order that is worth every sacrifice necessary
to attain it. For freedom they were eager to dare
greatly, to fight against overwhelming odds, to give
their fortunes and their lives. Their conception of the
destiny they intended for the United States was as
venturesome and dangerous as it was idealistic.
The ten paragraphs of the Bill of Rights are a re-
minder that men went cold and hungry, that their
bare feet left blood stains across the snow, that they
hugged the holy ideal of liberty to their hearts in
spite of all the odds that lay against them, in spite of
suffering, deprivation and discouragement.
They did these things, not that we might enjoy
freedom without risk or service, but that we might
sacrifice for its maintenance as they sacrificed for its
establishment. The man who possesses liberty possesses
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5,
the jewel of greatest price, and all the thievedom of
the world will burn to take it from him. There is
never any let-up in the conflict between just men,
seeking to retain freedom, and thieves, seeking to
command the will of others. There must never be any
let-up in the readiness of free people to do whatever
needs to be done to cherish their independence. Im-
plicit in the American Bill of Rights is a guarantee
that transcends all the others: "The right of sacrifice
in the cause of freedom is reserved to all the people."
-JAMES P. POPE,
Director,
Tennessee Valley Authority
III
鲞
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Chart And Compass
THE PRINCIPLE OF EQUALITY is the heart of the Bill of
Rights, and the Bill of Rights is the heart of American
democracy. Under the aegis of the Bill of Rights,
there is no place for discriminations on account of
race, color, religion or national origin. Verily, the Bill
of Rights is the chart and compass of American lib-
erty.
But the democratic ideals, heritages, traditions and
faiths envisioned and expressed in the Bill of Rights are
yet to be even approximately realized and transformed
into the American Way, practice, pattern and pol-
icy in relation to the Negro people. In very truth, the
Negro people who are the most disadvantaged, ex-
ploited, oppressed and victimized of all of the minority
groups is by that very token the true test of the Bill
of Rights and the American democratic system.
However, while the Negro is still in the process
of fighting to complete the bourgeois, liberal, demo-
cratic, political revolution symbolized in the Civil
War, which was expected to achieve for him the full
stature of American citizenship outlined in the Bill
of Rights, without this great and noble body of prin-
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ciples, his struggle for economic, political and social
liberation would be well-nigh impossible.
It is for this reason that the Negro must be con-
cerned with, and join the fight for, the complete de-
struction of all forms of totalitarianism, and especially
the menacing evil and danger of Hitler and Hitlerism,
and seek with all his might to maintain and preserve
American and world democracy.
-A. PHILIP RANDOLPH,
International President,
Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
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Permanent As The Republic
THE BILL OF RIGHTS, safeguarding as it does the free-
dom of the American citizen, is our most precious
heritage.
Built into the very framework of the Constitution,
its provisions are as permanent as the Republic itself
and their scope is as wide as the range of lawful hu-
man activities.
For a century and a half in the United States re-
ligious freedom has been unchallenged, freedom of
speech unlimited, the press has received and dissemi-
nated the news of the world, and without let or
hindrance the people have assembled for free dis-
cussion. The person of every citizen has been safe
from irregular legal proceedings and his goods from
unlawful seizure.
The American can not remember when he did
not enjoy these freedoms and he can not conceive
that he might be deprived of them.
It is not only appropriate but vitally important that
occasions such as the 150th anniversary of its adoption
should bring the Bill of Rights into the forefront of
our thinking and that a grateful people should rec-
114
ognize it as a source of their liberty, acclaim the
faith in mankind which inspired its authors and sol-
emnly undertake to justify that faith by unswerving
loyalty to country and to the cause of Democracy
in the world.
-RUTH BRYAN OWEN ROHDE,
Former United States Minister
to Denmark
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Important As Ever
NEVER BEFORE IN HISTORY has the Bill of Rights meant
more than it does today. It is important that everyone
be conscious of the rights which are guaranteed to
our citizens under that Bill of Rights.
If we are familiar with this document, it will curb
our prejudices and we will not discriminate against
any one because of race or religion.
If we hope to preserve Democracy in this country,
we must realize how important it is to see that the
rights of all citizens are guarded carefully.
If we allow certain groups to suffer because they
are weaker than others, we will find our whole struc-
ture of liberty is undermined. Who is to say which
groups may become the minority, or the weaker ones
in the course of the years?
Read the Bill of Rights as part of the Sesquicenten-
nial Celebration and insist that it is as important to us
today as it ever was.
་
-ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
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Natural Rights
The Declaration of Independence proclaims the
existence of natural rights when it asserts that "all
men are created equal and are endowed by their Cre-
ator with certain inalienable rights." While the Bill
of Rights does not explicitly mention natural rights,
it is closely related to them in two ways: first, most
of the rights which it lays down are not only civil
but natural rights; second, the presence of the Bill of
Rights in the Constitution shows that the members of
the Constitutional Convention believed it to be a
group of natural rights. The former proposition will
be denied only by those who reject entirely the doc-
trine of natural rights. The latter proposition will
seem evident to any one who considers the difference
between a legislative statute and a provision of our
organic law.
If our Founding Fathers did not believe that the
guarantees contained in the Bill of Rights were also
natural rights, they would not have taken the trouble
to put them into the Constitution. They would have
left them at the disposition of the Congress. To be
sure, they knew that the people could amend the
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Constitution and consequently would be able to abol-
ish the Bill of Rights, but they were well aware that
the amending and eliminating process would face
much greater practical difficulties than would the
enactment of a congressional statute. In other words,
the men who drew up the Bill of Rights went as far
as they could toward putting them beyond the power
of government to take away.
At this time, if not at all times, the most important
and valuable portions of the Bill of Rights are the
first and fifth articles. Freedom of religion, freedom
of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assem-
blage and petition are fundamental, as against the ar-
bitrary action of rulers. They are at the opposite
pole from the underlying principles of a totalitarian
state.
All the provisions of article five are precious to the
individual, but the most beneficent is the due process
clause. Not merely no citizen, but, no person "shall
be deprived of life, liberty or property without due
process of law." In its primary acceptation, this clause
guarantees to every accused person a hearing, a fair
trial. It protects even the poorest and lowliest against
arbitrary action by sheriffs, policemen, governors, and
other administrative officers. This is procedural due
process. The second, or legislative, meaning of the
clause has indeed been perverted by interpretation so
as to safeguard economic oppression. That is, it has
conferred upon the economically powerful and un-
scrupulous the liberty to injure the economically weak
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under the guise of free contract. Minimum wage laws
and shorter hour laws have been declared unconsti-
tutional on the ground that they deprive the citizens
of due process of law. Happily, recent decisions of the
Supreme Court have explicitly reversed that canon
of interpretation. For some time to come, at any rate,
the due process clause will be used only to protect
genuine rights, not to sanction the abuse of rights
by the powerful.
-JOHN A. RYAN,
Director, Department of Social Action,
National Catholic Welfare Conference
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We The People
ANNIVERSARIES OF MANY famous events in the growth
of our country still stir our patriotism, but the issues
and the conflicts which led to most of them have
disappeared between the covers of dusty history books.
Enactment of the Bill of Rights is one of the most im-
portant developments in our history, yet one which
at the same time is a vital, living issue.
"Bill of Rights" is a phrase synonymous with the
freedom which we enjoy today. The English Bill of
Rights, drawn up just two hundred and fifty years
ago, was the backlog of our fight for independence.
The Massachusetts Bill of Rights was the forerunner
of federal union. And our national Bill of Rights was
the instrument which has given life and lasting en-
durance to our Constitution.
Today, thanks to those written guarantees, we are
a free people. But in these distressing times, there are
forces at home and abroad which threaten to under-
mine our fundamental liberties. Our representative,
democratic system is a government of law. There is
only one other form of authority and that is a gov-
- ernment of force. One signifies justice and liberty; the
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other, tyranny and oppression. We see what has hap-
pened in the totalitarian countries where dictators
have begun by crushing freedom of the press and the
individual liberties of citizens. We must not permit
any such encroachments here.
The question is a living issue because with the best
motives to protect us against subversive influences,
groups of our citizens are tempted to apply suppres-
sion, which elsewhere has led to dictatorships. It is a
living issue because a government, in making itself
strong enough to deal with national problems, some-
times approaches the dictatorial borderline and, in de-
veloping collective action, may find it hard not to stifle
individual liberty. It is a living issue because modern
industrial relations bring many rights into conflict
with each other.
Sometimes checks and balances irk us, but in the
long run, they provide the majority of us with a maxi-
mum of liberty and happiness. That is what the Bill
of Rights guarantees. If we all are fair and tolerant
in our views and opinions, are honest with ourselves
and with others, then "we the people" need never
fear our future.
-LEVERETT SALTONSTALL,
Governor of Massachusetts.
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For The Protection Of Minorities
THE CONSTITUTION of the United States, before the
adoption of the ten Amendments referred to as the Bill
of Rights, consisted mainly of the form of govern-
ment and made provision for the apportionment of
representatives. It dealt with the manner and method
of passing bills, as well as the general powers of Con-
gress, the setting up of the three coordinate branches
of government, the Executive, the Legislative and the
Judicial. It further dealt with the compensation of the
President, the form of oath, the conferring of power
to appoint Ambassadors and inferior officers, crimes
against the federal government, extradition between
the several states, the method of admitting new States
to the union and dealt with the manner and method of
amending the document.
It was not, however, until the first ten Amendments,
referred to as the Bill of Rights, were adopted that
life, strength and vigor were given to the promises
made in the Declaration of Independence. It might
well be said that before the adoption of these ten
Amendments, the Constitution dealt with government
whereas the Amendments dealt with the citizens. They
$22
are the guarantee of their freedom of speech, of re-
ligion, of the press and the right to petition. They
were enacted for the protection of minorities and of
individuals. They are the soul of the Constitution and
it is fitting and proper that time be set aside for the
celebration of the anniversary of their adoption. They
made the Constitution as near a perfect document as
humen ingenuity could devise.
J
-ALFRED E. SMITH,
Ex-Governor of New York
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Basic Human Rights
WHAT IS THE FREEDOM to which under the Bill of
Rights and the laws and traditions of America, the
American citizen believes he has the right? 1. The
freedom to form and hold his own opinions without
coercion. 2. The freedom to express and propagate
his own opinions within the bounds of American law
and tradition, with no advocacy of change of the laws
and traditions except by orderly and peaceful process.
3. Equal laws and equality before the law for every
citizen and for every group of citizens. 4. Freedom
from all discriminatory legislation, favorable or unfav-
orable, affecting religious, educational or charitable
agencies, whether Protestant, Roman Catholic or
Jewish.
KENN
These freedoms we desire for ourselves and ought
to desire for all men. Whoever, for example, claims
freedom for religious minorities in America ought to
claim similar freedom for religious minorities in Spain
and Russia and Germany. The rights recognized in the
Bill of Rights were not created by that Bill. They are
basic human rights which all men everywhere ought
to enjoy and all our moral influence should be exerted
to secure them for all mankind.
-ROBERT E. SPEER,
Ex-President, Federal Council of the
Churches of Christ in America
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The Basis For Unity
THE BILL OF RIGHTS is a foundation of our democracy
but it is too often interpreted in a way that promotes
intolerance. It must be realized that the rights for
which it stands carry with them an obligation not only
to recognize the rights of others but to listen with
sympathy and understanding when others exercise
those rights. In other words, it is an interpretation of
the basis of democracy, the unique importance of in-
dividual personality. Only by the weaving together of
differing talents do we achieve unity.
-CHARLES P. TAFT,
Assistant Director of Defense Health
and Welfare Services,
Federal Security Agency
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An Ever Living Legacy
TO ME, THE BILL OF RIGHTS symbolizes the essence of
democracy, both as a form of government for the
nation and as a “way of life" for the people. Although
adopted as an Amendment, the Bill of Rights is the
very heart of the Constitution.
The Bill of Rights is a guarantee in perpetuity of
the inalienable right of every citizen to “life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness." It is America's basic
charter of human freedom. It makes the Declaration
of Independence and the Constitution an ever living
legacy of liberty.
Today, as never before in our history, the Bill of
Rights is challenged-not by internal enemies but by
foreign totalitarian forces. If human freedom is to be
preserved, Americans must value their historic herit-
age more than life itself.
Wendell Willkie said in San Francisco on July 24,
1940: "Only men willing, if need be, to die for free-
dom, will have freedom." The spirit of Patrick Henry
must live again in the hearts of all who love liberty.
The United States is the "last best hope of earth”
in saving democracy and building a world-ordered
126 ·
society of free men. The time has come when Amer-
ica must keep a momentous "rendezvous with des-
tiny."
It may be that Americans again must die for liberty.
Whatever the cost, democracy, as a way of life and
as a form of government, must be preserved for our-
selves and for our posterity.
-E. GUY TALBOTT,
Field Secretary, World Alliance
for International Friendship
Through the Churches
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The Final Victory
THE FOUNDING FATHERS established "a more perfect
Union," to make effective the majority will by demo-
cratic and orderly means. But into the self-same Con-
stitution the people wrote a Bill of Rights, recognizing
that the ultimate test of government for as well as
by themselves is the fullest enjoyment by every per-
son of freedom of speech, press, assembly and religion.
"The general voice of America," as Jefferson described
the popular will, demanded and obtained this added
security for liberty.
These written constitutional guaranties have pro-
vided a check on occasional attempts at official
tyranny; but that is not the key to their survival.
Abroad, one European nation after another has lost
its freedom, in the face of solemn pronouncements in
its fundamental law. At home, civil liberties have been
infringed by popular passion and prejudice far more
frequently than by the calculated action of Congress,
the Executive or the Courts. The fact is that our herit-
age of individual liberty has survived because we as a
people have cherished and generally practiced it in
our daily lives, and because we as a nation have de-
}
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fended it by arms against every external foe.
From earliest days, our population has been made
up of immigrants and the sons of immigrants, of a mul-
titude of racial, religious and cultural backgrounds, all
fleeing some form of oppression, all joined in a love
of freedom. Under the protecting shield of individual
liberty, each strain in our varied population has con-
tributed its full share toward the common goal of na-
tional greatness. As the machine age opened up new
problems and new tyrannies, we have broadened the
responsibilities of government in the economic sphere,
so that farmers and factory workers might be truly
free. With every passing year, new blows for the
rights of the underprivileged have been struck by
Congress, the Courts, and an intelligent and alert pub-
lic opinion. The crisis of the times has given new ur-
gency to our efforts in meeting and overcoming long-
suffered injustices and perfecting our democratic her-
itage.
S
Today, the maintenance of that heritage is as chal-
lenging as it was in the formative period one hundred
and fifty years ago. What we do or fail to do is even
more decisive for the future of the Bill of Rights
than the historic words and deeds of the Founding
Fathers.
In the warfare being waged by the Axis against
democratic institutions everywhere, a bombardment
of subversive ideas may be as potent as an attack with
airplanes and tanks. The Nazi Minister of Enlighten-
ment and Propaganda has proclaimed that "nothing
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will be easier than to produce a bloody revolution in
North America. No other country has so many social
and racial tensions. We shall be able to play on many
strings there.” A noisy handful of Dr. Goebbels' dupes
and apologists have been injecting his shop-worn
propaganda and his racial animosities into the currents
of American debate on foreign policy. This abuse of
the freedom sanctioned by the Bill of Rights must
and will be answered by facts, not suppression. We
know that democracy has not run its race; for our
system has built here the world's highest standards of
life, while the nations controlled by dictatorship sink
deeper into starvation and despair. We know that Nazi
racial dogmas will never win support in this free land;
for our history of inter-racial cooperation and har-
mony is the perennial goal of suffering Europe, while
Hitler's conception of a master race has earned univer-
sal hate and scorn. Above all, we know that the Bill
of Rights springs from the humanity and religious
heritage of all civilized men, while Nazism is a rever-
sion to the pagan and barbaric.
On this fateful anniversary of the Bill of Rights, let
us therefore proclaim that ours is the glory and the
future. With God's help, ours will be the final victory.
1
-ROBERT F. WAGNER.
United States Senator
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A Bill Of Duties
THE CHIEF VALUE of a commemorating celebration is
to point the road to the future. We look back 150
years to the birth of the Bill of Rights. It is equally
worthwhile to look forward 150 years and ask our-
selves what we are doing now that will be worthy of
commemoration then.
I can't help thinking that it is all-important for
every citizen in the United States to reinforce the
written Bill of Rights with an unwritten Bill of Duties
engraved on his heart. There will never be in the
United States a Nazi or Fascist overlord, telling each
individual citizen just what his or her duty is. But in
order to avoid this, it is vital that every citizen should
think vigorously in his own way about his duty day
by day to the general welfare. If this feeling is strong
enough, the Bill of Rights will mean as much to our
descendants 150 years from now as it does to us today.
-HENRY A. WALLACE,
Vice President of the United States
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​An Unimpaired Heritage
1
THE BILL OF RIGHTS is a covenant between the Ameri-
can people and their Government. It is a covenant
which guarantees to the individual citizen the main-
tenance of civil liberties and the protection of human
dignity and freedom against inroads by the State.
But unless the Bill of Rights is also interpreted as a
Bill of Duties, this guarantee is unfulfillable.
In the last analysis, the Bill of Rights is a contract
between each American citizen and his fellow citizens
-a contract which requires that we fulfill our duties
in order that we may enjoy our rights-a contract
which requires that we neither abuse our rights nor
trespass upon the similar rights of others.
No mere written document-not even our Constitu-
tion--can guarantee us the preservation of the free-
doms for which our forefathers fought and died. Only
our own eternal vigilance-only our own everlasting
willingness to sacrifice, to fight and, if necessary, to̟
die for the maintenance of our freedom, can insure
our handing down to our children an unimpaired her-
itage of freedom and human dignity.
-JAMES P. WARBURG
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The Essence Of
Essence Of Civilization
SO INGRAINED IN THE MIND and spirit of the American
people is the philosophy of the Bill of Rights that until
recently it seemed fantastic that it should ever be chal-
lenged.
The hideous barbarism of the Nazi revolution of
reaction is the exact opposite of all the guarantees of
the Bill of Rights. The Nazi-Fascist thesis is that the
few should enslave and utilize the many and that free-
dom is dangerous whether it be freedom of action,
speech, press, conscience or thought. The Nazi allega-
tion is that a single Fuehrer should possess absolute
power and that he and his henchmen are supermen.
Such was probably the idea of many of the petty
tyrants and bandits against whom the liberty-loving
men and women of the world dared to demand and
succeeded in securing the Bill of Rights. The precious
liberties they won are better appreciated now that we
have seen in action the contrasting degradation which
dictatorship seeks to impose.
The Bill of Rights is the declaration of the dignity
of the individual as a member of a civilized community
with the right to worship according to his conscience,
the right to think freely, the opportunity to speak,
print, write and do what he believes is proper, subject
only to the obligations of respecting similar rights
among his fellows.
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The Bill of Rights embodies the relationship of the
individual to society and of society to the individual.
It has grown with the times but the sturdiness of its
spirit was full-blown at its birth.
The essence of the Bill of Rights is our tolerance of
the same reasonable liberties in others which we be-
lieve proper for ourselves and our defense of our own
liberties against encroachment by anyone who would
trespass beyond the bounds it imposes.
Today we must renew our fervent loyalty to these
principles lest either complacency or prejudice rob us
of the ennobling democracy which it breathes into a
free nation. We who possess this doctrine of mutual
decency must defend it from within or from without.
The Bill of Rights has been a beacon light leading
mankind out of the darkness of barbarism and those
who prattle that dictatorship is the wave of the future
forget that dictatorship was the slough of the past and
that democracy has led mankind out of the degrada-
tion of the past. The spirit of Christianity has led men
out of slavery by inculcating the dignity and responsi-
bility of the soul of man which have joined in making
the Bill of Rights the essence of modern civilization.
Let us, in our nation, keep marching ahead, holding
firm the individual liberties and responsibilities of our
Bill of Rights.
-ROBERT J. WATT,
International Representative,
American Federation of Labor
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*To Celebrate Liberty
THE CELEBRATION of the Fourth of July distinctly is
set to revive the glorious memory of the Declaration
of Independence. For the principles of liberty which
have given survival values to our American govern-
ment, stem back to the Declaration of Independence.
That Declaration was a fiery, revolutionary defy
aimed at the powers of kings who ruled without the
consent of the governed. That Declaration was a voice
crying in the wilderness for the establishment of liber-
ties that the world then did not understand. A few
agitators, philosophers and visionaries were writing
about the things embodied in our Declaration when it
was published. But our demands for liberty roused the
laughter of kings and were greeted with contempt by
the ruling powers of the world. Yet all the freedom
demanded by that revolutionary declaration later was
embodied in the Constitution of the United States-
not in the original draft but in the preamble and that
part of the Constitution known as the Bill of Rights.
Our Constitution today and all its wise framework
of government rests upon the guarantees of liberty
embodied in that Bill of Rights.
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It is to celebrate liberty that we have set aside this
Fourth of July. Without liberty no guarantees of gov-
ernment are valid. Deny the liberties that are guaran-
teed to the American people by the Bill of Rights,
liberties which came straight out of the impulse of the
Declaration of Independence, and all the wise checks
and balances set up in our Constitution will collapse
and free government will pass in this nation.
If by some social or political cataclysm our Consti-
tution itself should be abolished, and the preamble
with the Bill of Rights might be left intact, the Con-
stitution would be restored within a year. But if the
Bill of Rights were wiped out and the Constitution
only survived without the liberties of free speech, free
conscience, free assemblage, a free press, the right of
the writ of habeas corpus, and the trial by jury, then
all the wise provisions of the Constitution itself soon
would disappear. Never forget this: our country could
survive any shock if our liberties remained. It could
stand no social change if we lost our liberties. A con-
stitutional government that is not upheld by free men
would soon be a tyranny no matter how wisely the
Constitution were framed, no matter how carefully it
were worded.
So this day we celebrate America, the land of the
free. Here is a country where men of every race and
creed, men of every form of political belief, men of
every aspiring dream for a better world, may have
their say and go their peaceful ways. The Constitu-
tion embodies the rules for the orderly process of
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democracy. But the Constitution triumphs because and
only because it is buttressed and backed up by the Bill
of Rights which came out of the philosophy of the
Declaration of Independence. The orderly constitu-
tional processes of democracy hold their place and
function as the foundation of our Republic buttressed
by the loyal love of free men. For strong and firm as
our constitutional foundation is today, let us remem-
ber that under the foundations of our government are
the footing stones, those previous liberties of the indi-
vidual which come through the Bill of Rights mor-
tised in the Declaration of Independence celebrated
this day. Our Constitution is the wisest document that
man has ever penned. How quickly would it crumble
into dust if the guarantees of freedom should go-
those blessings of liberty which rose out of the Dec-
laration of Independence and were written indelibly
in the Bill of Rights.
So today we hail that Rebel Declaration of Inde-
pendence! It is a charter of our liberties in this land
of the free, this home of the brave-where to be brave
we must be free, where the free must be ever brave.
-WILLIAM ALLEN WHITE
*Substance of an address delivered by William Allen White over
a coast to coast radio hook up on July 4th, under the auspices
of the Council Against Intolerance in America.
137
Old Principles For New Situations
THE TEN AMENDMENTS to the Constitution which we
call the Bill of Rights have a meaning as vital to Amer-
icans of today as to the Americans of 1791 who wrote
them. The freedoms of worship, speech, press and
assembly which American citizens guaranteed to
themselves 150 years ago are the same freedoms this
nation is determined to defend in 1941.
-
The Bill of Rights is the great charter of individual
liberty and the dignity of the individual. As such it
lies close to the hearts of farm men and women. Al-
though farmers as a group claim no superiority over
other groups of Americans in love of liberty and in
patriotism, they surely come second to no other group.
The United States of 1791 was an agrarian nation.
Practically all the men who formed the Bill of Rights,
who passed it in Congress, and who ratified it in State
Legislatures were either farmers or men elected by
farmers.
Farmers are as willing to work and fight for the Bill
of Rights now as they were then; and they will fight
for the spirit of the Bill of Rights, not just for the en-
shrined letter. In their striving for economic democ-
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racy farmers now are applying the old principles to
new situations which have arisen. They are making
farm programs work so that farmers can have a say
in their own destiny.
For all American citizens, as well as for farmers, the
first ten Amendments to the Constitution are the guar-
antee that the state will exist to serve the individual,
not the individual to serve. the state. We are prepared
to guard that guarantee by force of arms against any
threat from without. And by warring against poverty,
disease and malnutrition which are the breeding
ground of intolerance and race hatred, we are pre-
pared also to meet threats from within.
1
-CLAUDE R. WICKARD,
United States Secretary of Agriculture
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Never More Precious
THOUGH IT SOUND TRITE to speak of the supreme signi-
ficance of the Bill of Rights, never was it more need-
ful to remember that it is just another link in the
chain which stretches from the Magna Charta of
Runnymede in 1215 to the Declaration of Independ-
ence of Philadelphia in 1776. The highly spiritual
promises of the Constitution secured their ultimate
guarantees through the Bill of Rights which was
prophecy of what a democracy must come to be.
The Bill of Rights is more precious than ever before
because of the momentary-it cannot be permanent—
abrogation of parallel ideas first proclaimed in the
same year, 1789, in and by the French Republic and
because of the unashamed attack of totalitarianism
everywhere upon those institutions of democracy
which have waxed mighty under the aegis or inspira-
tion of the American Bill of Rights!
For the first time in our history, the Bill of Rights
is threatened from without. For a Hitler-conquered
and Hitler-ruled world would mean the abrogation of
the Bill of Rights, the cancellation of democracy, the
enslavement of men. To keep the Bill of Rights invio-
late, let us in this sesqui-centennial of its adoption
dedicate our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.
-STEPHEN S. WISE,
President, American Jewish Congress
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The Breath Of Life
WHAT DOES THE BILL OF RIGHTS mean to me? It means
the very breath of life!
Perhaps it took the vicious attack of the Nazi regime
upon the rights of the individual to bring us to a reali-
zation of their meaning. We had taken too much for
granted; given as little thought to the freedom which
we enjoy as to the air which we breathe.
Now that freedom is threatened it is time for each
one of us to rally to its defense; to guard the inalien-
able rights of every human being to freedom of wor-
ship, of speech, of the press, of assembly, of petition.
No one of our possessions is comparable to the
ideals of liberty, tolerance and equality upon which
this Republic was founded. May we, too, be willing
to pledge for their maintenance "our lives, our for-
tunes and our sacred honor.”
-MARY E. WOOLLEY,
President Emeritus, Mt. Holyoke College
4
P
141
¿
INDEX OF CONTRIBUTORS
Anderson, Mary
Atkinson, Henry A..
Barbour, W. Warren.
Battle, George Gordon.
Beard, Mary R……….
Biddle, Francis
Buck, Pearl S..
Capper, Arthur
Coffee, Rudolph I.
·
Coonley, Howard
Cox, James M...
Cushman, Ralph Spaulding
Daniels, Josephus
Davis, John W..
Dewey, Thomas E.
Douglas, Melvyn
Doyle, Michael Francis.
Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas.
Frankfurter, Felix
Freeman, James E..
Gannett, Frank E..
Goldstein, Israel
Herrick, Elinore M..
Holmes, John Haynes.
Hull, Cordell
Ickes, Harold L..
Johnson, Alvin
Jones, Jesse
•
•
·
•
·
•
•
•
Kilpatrick, William Heard.
Lehman, Herbert H..
Leiper, Henry Smith...
Lindeman, Eduard C..
·
→
·
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
►
•
O
PAGE
15
19
25
27
22248
29
31
33
8 8 8 8 7 2 2 2 22:28 * * * * * * * * * 8 & & &
35
37
39
4.2
4.4
46
49
52
54
56
58
59
62
64
66
70
73
75
77
79
80
83
85
87
"
+
w
INDEX OF CONTRIBUTORS
MacLean, Malcolm S..
McNutt, Paul V..
Mather, Kirtley F..
Mead, James M..
Morris, Newbold
Myers, Alonzo F..
Olson, Culbert L...
Poletti, Charles
Pope, James P.
•
·
Randolph, A. Philip.
Rohde, Ruth Bryan Owen
Roosevelt, Eleanor
Ryan, John A..
•
Saltonstall, Leverett
Smith, Alfred E..
Speer, Robert E..
Swope, Herbert Bayard.
Taft, Charles P...
•
Talbott, E. Guy.
Wagner, Robert F...
Wallace, Henry A..
Warburg, James P..
Watt, Robert J……….
White, William Allen.
Wickard, Claude R..
Wise, Stephen S……..
Woolley, Mary E..
•
►
·
•
+
.
·
•
•
•
►
PAGE
89
92
96
98
101
103
105
107
110
112
114
116
117
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122
124
9
125
126
128
131
132
133
135
138
140
141
L
7
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