Education of an American Liberal

Оглавление

Lucille LLC Milner. Education of an American Liberal

Introduction

Author's note

PART ONE. 1

2

3

4

5

6

7

PART TWO. 8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

Отрывок из книги

Liberty is the breath of life of our American Republic. "Man," said Rousseau, "is everywhere born free, and is everywhere in chains." We Americans were born free. Most of us, by the grace of God, have not experienced the chains.

But so long as there are men stronger by personal power or by circumstance and men that are weaker, there will be chains, unless natural liberty is translated into civil liberty, liberty established by law and defended by the courts that administer the law. The majority of us enjoy civil liberty, for ourselves. The select few among us are ready to make sacrifices, often heavy sacrifices, to defend the civil liberties of others.

.....

That little body of true Americans who in 1920 organized for the defense of civil liberties seemed to be attempting to sweep back the ocean tide. They made up with courage and will power for what they lacked in the way of political power. A. Mitchell Palmer could swing all the power of the Attorney General's office to crush little people whose ideas and words could be labelled by the new weasel word "subversive," but Palmer's power disintegrated while the Civil Liberties Union grew stronger. After all, the Palmers of that time like the McCarthys of today are intrusions upon the honest traditions of free America; such intrusions are bound to wither away.

Lucille Milner has chosen the form of an autobiography to present her experience in the fight for civil liberties. It is a charming autobiography: the reader would like to see more of Lucille Milner in it; but the little one sees is rewarding. One gets some sense of the forces that made an extremely charming member of the privileged classes secede from the pleasantness of privileged life to hover around the slums, and to court outrage on the picket lines.

.....