Liberty in Danger Under Democracy

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 9, 1 March 1923, Page 21

Liberty in Danger Under Democracy

(By Archbishop Redwood.)

No doubt individual freedom is a precious boon to be guarded with unflagging perseverance, watching every encroachment. Many unenlightened citizens fancy they possess it wholly and securely, by the very fact that their Government is a democracy. But they forget, what is amply and repeatedly proved by history, that democracy can be, and has been, as tyrannical as any other form of government, when not efficiently checked and controlled. Now, the real acid test of freedom, at any time, in any place, is the amount of liberty guaranteed to minorities by established law, in a code of legislation immune fionx tho vagaries and passions of the powerful, in the shape of a headless mob, or calculated despotism, lhat wise and far-seeing genius of yore, Solon, puts the essence of democracy in this: man must obey no master but the law , supposing, of course, the law to be just, that is, in accordance with right reason. If the bulk of men were wise, they would cherish everybody’s liberty as much as their own. Why? For the simple reason, among others, of selfish expediency, because the situation might at any time be reversed. The real reason, of course, should be because freedom is a gift of God, who hallowed it by imparting to us free will. Hence the truth that liberty is as old as the world, whereas despotism is a wicked upstart. Now, we have to-day before us, a timely and most instructive example in the United States of America, of how it is possible for a free country to become a tyrant. There, at this very hour, the path of freedom is sorely beset with sharp thorns, and slavery, downright slavery, looms large in the near future. Under pain of the total loss eventually of liberty and justice, a free people must uphold the reign of law, just law. Look at the United States, in this year of Our Lord, 1923. What a formidable instance of the incipient decay of democracy! Take "Volstead: he, upheld by the evangelical Churches which have reduced the Ten Commandments to one supreme and mad effort to abolish the drink evil, makes it a sheer impossibility to got a. drink of alcoholic beverage legally, even on the high , seas, at least under the Stars and Stripes. Go on, go on recklessly, disturb the peace of the community, openly .. flaunt the laws, imperil international amity and the American maritime —what matter? let intolerant sumptuary legislation prevail to the verge of the country’s ruin.

Another bright luminary, a Mr. McSparrow, late candidate for the governorship of the largest State but one in the Union, would make it impossible to smoke a cigar, or even grow tobacco ! Maine prohibits by law the use of ice in beverages, even with water! The killjoy and sour legislation of many States makes it a high crime and misdemeanor to indulge in innocent outdoor athletics on Sunday. Nay, a late President of the Republic strove, might and main, in a solemn State document, to control not only men’s actions but their very thoughts, urging them to be neutral and nothing else. Again, the Attorney-General of the Union denied the right of free assembly, and controlled the right of free speech a disastrous policy quickly followed in many States, as the occasion of lamentable labor disturbances. In a number of southern States the right of trial by jury is flagrantly violated, and lynching replaces the circus as a popular entertainment. The three prevailing amusements in America, have each set up a dictator with powers as drastic as anything antiquity can show in practical politics. The large advertisers in the States practically control a vast amount of the public press,” the public magazines, and the news agencies in the land. The State of Oregon has lately invaded the sacred realm of conscience, and prohibits parents to educate their children in accordance with their conscience. The State of Michigan forbids the teaching of catechism and Bible history in the parish schools of that State, and, all through many other sections of the country, strolling birth-controllers, amid the stupid plaudits of the crowd, are daily haranguing the people to make it impossible for future citizens to be born.

What tattered rags of liberty are left \n the boastful land of liberty, so-called free America! 1 Let New Zealand look seriously at this picture and take a lesson for both its past and future legislation. Such absolutism of democracy as we have just described stands in direct opposition to Christ's famous saying', three days before His death. He thus divinely inaugurated the real freedom of mankind, when He gave to the civil power a vaster empire than it had ever possessed: "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's." Magnificent words! surorunding earthly governments with a halo of sanctity lifting them to the highest pinnacle of reverence. But, at the same time, He plainly bade them mind their own business and not interfere with the affairs of conscience. He taught the salutary and sublime doctrine that the civil power requires to be restrained within definite limits. Democracy, even in America, not to speak of New Zealand, must return to the high teaching of Christ, if it is not to degenerate into odious tyranny.