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10 - What Prohibition Has Done to America by Fabian Franklin · What Prohibition Has Done to America

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  Speaker 1: Chapter ten of What Prohibition Has Done to America. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Jude Cater What Prohibition Has
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  Speaker 1: Done to America by Fabian Franklin, Chapter ten, Prohibition and Socialism.
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  Speaker 1: In the foregoing chapter, I have said that while absorption
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  Speaker 1: in the idea of democracy has had a tendency to
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  Speaker 1: impair devotion to the idea of liberty, yet that in
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  Speaker 1: democracy itself there is no inherent opposition to liberty. The
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  Speaker 1: danger to individual liberty in a democracy is of the
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  Speaker 1: same nature as the danger to individual liberty in a
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  Speaker 1: monarchy or an oligarchy. Whether power be held by one man,
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  Speaker 1: or by a thousand, or by a majority out of
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  Speaker 1: one hundred million, it is equally possible for the governing power,
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  Speaker 1: on the one hand, to respect, or on the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: to ignore the right of individuals to the free play
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  Speaker 1: of their individual powers, the exercise of their individual predilections,
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  Speaker 1: the leading of their individual lives according to their own
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  Speaker 1: notions of what is right or desirable. A monarch of
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  Speaker 1: enlightened and liberal mind will respect that right and limit
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  Speaker 1: his encroachments upon it to the minimum required for the
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  Speaker 1: essential objects of reasonable government. So too will a democracy,
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  Speaker 1: if it is of like temper and intelligence. But it
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  Speaker 1: is not so with socialism. Numerous as are the varieties
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  Speaker 1: of socialism, they are all agree in being inherently antagonistic
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  Speaker 1: to individualism. It may be pleaded, in criticism of this
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  Speaker 1: assertion that all government is opposed to individualism, that the
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  Speaker 1: difference in this respect between socialism and other forms of
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  Speaker 1: civil organization is only one of degree. That we make
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  Speaker 1: a surrender of individuality as well as of liberty when
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  Speaker 1: we consent to live in any organized form of society.
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  Speaker 1: It is not worthwhile to dispute the point. The difference may,
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  Speaker 1: if one chooses, be regarded as only a difference of degree.
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  Speaker 1: But when a difference of degree goes to such a
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  Speaker 1: point that what is minor, incidental, exceptional in the one
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  Speaker 1: case is paramount, essential, pervasive in the other, the difference is,
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  Speaker 1: for all purposes of thinking, equivalent to a difference of kind.
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  Speaker 1: Socialism is, in its very essence as to individualism. It
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  Speaker 1: makes the collective welfare not an incidental concern of each
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  Speaker 1: man's daily life, but his primary concern. The standard it
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  Speaker 1: sets up, the regulations it establishes, are not things that
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  Speaker 1: a man must merely take account of as special restraints
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  Speaker 1: on his freedom, exceptional limitations on the exercise of his individuality.
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  Speaker 1: They constitute the basic conditions of his life. When the
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  Speaker 1: socialist movement was in its infancy in this country, though
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  Speaker 1: it had made great headway in several of the leading
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  Speaker 1: countries of Europe, the customary way of disposing of it
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  Speaker 1: was with a mere wave of the hand. Socialism can
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  Speaker 1: never work. It is contrary to human nature. These simple
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  Speaker 1: assertions were regarded by nearly all conservatives as sufficient to
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  Speaker 1: settle the matter in the minds of all sensible persons.
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  Speaker 1: That is now no longer so much the fashion. Yet
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  Speaker 1: I have no doubt that a very large proportion of
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  Speaker 1: those who are opposed to socialism are still content with
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  Speaker 1: this way of disposing of it. But socialism has steadily,
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  Speaker 1: though of course with fluctuations, increased in strength in America
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  Speaker 1: as well as in Europe for many decades, and it
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  Speaker 1: would be folly to imagine that mere declarations of its
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  Speaker 1: being impracticable or contrary to human nature will suffice to
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  Speaker 1: check it. Millions of men and women here in America,
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  Speaker 1: ranging in intellect all the way from the most cultured
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  Speaker 1: to the most ignorant, are filled with an ardent faith
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  Speaker 1: that in socialism and in nothing else, is to be
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  Speaker 1: found the remedy for all the great evils under which
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  Speaker 1: mankind suffers. And there is no sign of slackening in
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  Speaker 1: the growth of this faith. When the time comes for
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  Speaker 1: a real test of its strength, when it shall have
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  Speaker 1: gathered such force as to be able to throw dow
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  Speaker 1: a real challenge to the conservative forces in the political field.
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  Speaker 1: It is absurd to suppose that those who are inclined
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  Speaker 1: to welcome it as the salvation of the world will
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  Speaker 1: be frightened off by prophecies of failure. They will want
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  Speaker 1: to make the trial, and they will make the trial
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  Speaker 1: regardless of all prophecies of disaster. If the people shall
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  Speaker 1: have come to believe that the object is a desirable one,
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  Speaker 1: that socialism is a form of life which they would
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  Speaker 1: like after they got it. The one great bulwark against
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  Speaker 1: socialism is the sentiment of liberty. If we find nothing
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  Speaker 1: obnoxious in universal regimentation, if we feel that life would
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  Speaker 1: have as much savor when all of us were told
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  Speaker 1: off to our tasks, or at least circumscribed and supervised
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  Speaker 1: in our activities by a swarm of officials carrying out
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  Speaker 1: the benevolent edicts of a paternal government. If we hold
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  Speaker 1: as of no account the ec excize of individual choice
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  Speaker 1: and the development of individual potentialities, which are the very
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  Speaker 1: lifeblood of the existing order of society, If all these
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  Speaker 1: things hold no value for us, then we shall gravitate
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  Speaker 1: to socialism as surely as a river will find its
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  Speaker 1: way to the sea. Socialism, granted, its practicability, and its
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  Speaker 1: practicability can never be disproved except by trial, by long
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  Speaker 1: and repeated trial, holds out the promise of great blessings
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  Speaker 1: to mankind, and some of these blessings it is actually
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  Speaker 1: capable of furnishing, even if in the end it should
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  Speaker 1: prove to be a failure. Above all, it could completely
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  Speaker 1: abolish poverty, that is, anything like abject poverty. The productive
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  Speaker 1: power of mankind, thanks to the progress of science and invention,
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  Speaker 1: is now so great that even if socialism were to
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  Speaker 1: bring about a very great decline of productiveness, not to
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  Speaker 1: be sure, such utter blasting of productiveness as has been
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  Speaker 1: caused by the Bolshevik insanity, there would be yet amply
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  Speaker 1: enough to supply, by equal distribution the simple needs of
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  Speaker 1: all the people. Besides the abolition of poverty, there would
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  Speaker 1: be the extinction of many sinister forms of competitive greed
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  Speaker 1: and dishonesty. To the eye of the thinking conservative, these
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  Speaker 1: things poverty, greed, dishonesty, while serious evils, are but the
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  Speaker 1: blemishes in a great and wholesome scheme of human life,
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  Speaker 1: drawbacks which go with the benefits of a system in
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  Speaker 1: which each man is free, within certain necessary limits, to
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  Speaker 1: do his best or his worse. A price, such as
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  Speaker 1: in this imperfect world, we have to pay for anything
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  Speaker 1: that is worth having. But to the socialist the matter
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  Speaker 1: presents itself in no such light. He sees a mass
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  Speaker 1: of misery which he believes, and in large measure justly believes,
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  Speaker 1: socialism would put an end to. And he has no
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  Speaker 1: patience with the conservative who points out, and justly points
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  Speaker 1: out that the poverty is being steadily though gradually overcome
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  Speaker 1: in the advance of mankind under the existing order. Away
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  Speaker 1: with it, he says, we cannot wait a hundred years
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  Speaker 1: for that which we have a right to demand today,
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  Speaker 1: And away with it, we ought all to say. If socialism,
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  Speaker 1: while doing away with it would not be doing away
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  Speaker 1: with something else of infinite value and infinite benefit to mankind,
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  Speaker 1: both material and spiritual, something with which is bound up
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  Speaker 1: the richness and zest of life, not only for what
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  Speaker 1: it is the fashion of radicals to call the privileged few,
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  Speaker 1: but for the great mass of mankind. That's something is liberty,
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  Speaker 1: and the individuality, which is inseparably bound up with liberty.
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  Speaker 1: The essence of socialism is the suppression of individuality, the
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  Speaker 1: exaltation of the collective will and the collective interest, the
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  Speaker 1: submergence of the individual will and the individual interest. The
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  Speaker 1: particular form, even the particular degree of coercion, by which
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  Speaker 1: this submergence is brought about varies with the different types
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  Speaker 1: of socialism, but they all agree in the essential fact
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  Speaker 1: of the submergence. Socialism may possibly be compatible with prosperity,
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  Speaker 1: with contentment, it is not compatible with liberty, not compatible
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  Speaker 1: with individuality. I am, of course not undertaking here to
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  Speaker 1: discuss the merits of socialism. My purpose is only to
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  Speaker 1: point out that those who are hostile to socialism must
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  Speaker 1: cherish liberty, and it is vain to cherish liberty in
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  Speaker 1: the abstract. If you are doing your best to dry
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  Speaker 1: up the very source of the love of liberty in
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  Speaker 1: the concrete workings of every man's daily experience with the
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  Speaker 1: plain man, indeed with men in general, plain or otherwise.
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  Speaker 1: Love of liberty, or of any elemental concept is strong
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  Speaker 1: only if it is instinctive, and it cannot be instinctive
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  Speaker 1: if it is jarred every day by habitual and unresented
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  Speaker 1: experience of its opposite. Prohibition is a restraint of liberty
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  Speaker 1: so clearly unrelated to any primary need of the state,
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  Speaker 1: so palpably bearing on the most personal aspect of a
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  Speaker 1: man's own conduct, that it is impossible to acquiesce in
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  Speaker 1: it and retain a genuine and lively feeling of abhorrence
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  Speaker 1: or any other threatened invasion of the domain of liberty
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  Speaker 1: which can claim the justification of being intended for the
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  Speaker 1: benefit of the poor or unfortunate. So long as prohibition
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  Speaker 1: was a local measure, so long even as it was
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  Speaker 1: a measure of state legislation, this effect did not follow,
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  Speaker 1: or if at all, only in a small degree. People
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  Speaker 1: did not regard it as a dominant, and above all
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  Speaker 1: as a paramount and inescapable part of the national life,
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  Speaker 1: but decreed for the whole nation, and embedded permanently in
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  Speaker 1: the Constitution. It will have an immeasurable effect in impairing
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  Speaker 1: that instinct of liberty which has been the very heart
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  Speaker 1: of the American spirit. And with the loss of that
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  Speaker 1: spirit will be lost the one great and enduring defense
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  Speaker 1: against socialism. It is not by the argumentation of economists,
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  Speaker 1: nor by the calculations of statisticians, that the socialist advance
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  Speaker 1: can be halted. The real struggle will be a struggle
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  Speaker 1: not of the mind, but of the spirit. It will
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  Speaker 1: be the socialism and regimentation against individualism and liberty. The
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  Speaker 1: cause of prohibition has owed its rapid success in no
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  Speaker 1: small measure to the support of great capitalists and industrialists
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  Speaker 1: bent upon the absorbing object of productive efficiency. But they
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  Speaker 1: have paid a price they little realize, for in the
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  Speaker 1: attainment of this minor object they have made a tremendous
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  Speaker 1: breach in the greatest defense of the existing order of
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  Speaker 1: society against the advancing enemy. To undermine the foundations of
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  Speaker 1: liberty is to open the way to socialism. End of
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  Speaker 1: Chapter ten