Arts High School - Vignette Yearbook (Newark, NJ)

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TOLERANCE... Our Heritage and Our Future The following is a speech which was presented by lola Schipler on March 5, 1942 in the Newark City Hall when she represented Arts High School in the National Oratorical Contest sponsored by the American Legion. In these times when we are fighting for the restoration of human decency the world over, it is essential that we re-examine certain aspects of that fundamental American princi- ple, tolerance. What is tolerance? According to the diction- ary the word comes from a Latin root which means ‘to bear’. This origin leads to the pres- ent meaning ‘to bear with others’. Tolerance is a disposition to be patient and indulgent toward those whose opinions and practices dif- fer from our own. Tolerance means a sympa- thetic understanding of, and a due respect for the beliefs of others. Tolerance is the recogni- tion of the right of private judgment. It is an antidote for prejudiced opinion and unwar- ranted dislike. It is an attitude of forbearance with reference to other people’s views and con- victions. But it is important to understand that tolerance is not an attitude of indifference to the plight of our fellow men. Indifference is not real tolerance. It is criminal to be indifferent when a nation, race, or religion is threatened. The world today is paying a terrific toll in human life and misery for such indifference. I believe we can have real tolerance without indifference. You may ask, “Why discuss tolerance in America where it has been firmly established for years?” It is true that tolerance has always been an ideal towards which we have worked. The story of America’s struggle against intol- erance dates back to the beginning of our his- tory. It has been a long and hard struggle filled with great effort and sacrifice, but the fight is not completely won. The early part of our past deals with the struggle for religious tolerance. Some of our first settlers, the Pil- grims, risked their lives and fortunes and landed on American shores in 1620 to escape religious intolerance in England. In 1629 the oppressed English Puritans established the Massachu- setts Bay Colony. But these very same Puri- tans, not realizing that they were destroying their worthy ideal, tolerated Puritans only. As a result the brave young pastor, Roger Wil- ASRS lel Il (Go Jal liams, who preached that the state had no right to control a man’s conscience, was exiled in 1635. He and a small group of followers made their dangerous way through the wilderness and founded the colony of Rhode Island. This new settlement was based on the principle of complete religious freedom for all men. A few years later the first religious toleration act in America was passed by the Maryland Assem- bly. It stated that no person professing to believe in Jesus Christ would be in any way troubled for his or her religion. This meant some tolerance but not complete tolerance be- cause it excluded non-Christians. Then in 1681 came William Penn, the greatest of the found- ers of American colonies. Penn's colony, which was settled to provide a home for the oppressed English Quakers, was the highest example of freedom and tolerance in America before we gained our independence. Penn’s noble experi- ment was based on the principle of a peaceful and prosperous society under a humane gov- ernment welcoming peoples of various nation- alities and tolerating the worship of various creeds. And so we see that in the Colonial period our forefathers had laid the foundations for religious tolerance in this country. Then came that great document, the Dec- laration of Independence. Here we stated our ideals of government and human liberty. We made it clear to the rest of the world that our heritage would always be the idea of a gov- ernment based on the consent of the governed, based on the principle that every man, woman, and child has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What a sharp contrast to the heritage of the Old World! In our Con- stitution of 1787, the Bill of Rights of 1791, and the other amendments these liberties were more firmly fixed. As Amendment One states, “Congre ss shall make no law respecting an es- tablishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.” But intolerance was not banished the day the Bill of Rights was signed. There was and there oS © H O,Oge

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SpeGe NG OLE. avHEE SCHOOL

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NEWARK, still is a difficult task ahead. It took a bloody and dreadful Civil War to abolish human slavery, and finally the thirteenth amendment was adopted. The fourteenth amendment pro- vided for citizenship for the newly freed race and the 15th amendment stated that, ‘The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” It was not until 1920 that women were given the right to vote, thus enfranchising a large part of our population. | Not only do we have a National Constitu- tion which furthers tolerance but also the vari- ous State Constitutions which guarantee that the states shall not interfere with freedom of religion, press, and speech. This history of the fight against intolerance for the past three hun- dred years has been a noble one, but the fight is still on! Let us therefore examine the causes of this hateful disease. How does it achieve its sinister purpose? Intolerance is the result of prejudice created by biased opinion and spread by mali- cious demagogues. Poverty, insecurity, and ig- norance are the fertile soils for this type of propaganda. People who are unenlightened and above all, economically insecure, are easily swayed by the misleading, emotional appeal of any agitator who is in a position to misuse his power for vicious purposes. His method is to divide the people and then gain control of their liberties. Hatred and dissension take hold of the human imagination like wildfire while the ideal of brotherly love lags behind throughout the centuries. The most striking example of success in this ugly field of propaganda has been achieved by Hitler through Nazism. Naz- ism has poisoned the minds of large numbers of people the world over, including some of our own. This propaganda machine has led to our present world struggle. We can profit by examining Hitler's meth- ods. How did he achieve his purpose? First, he played on the discontent and economic in- security of the German people after the last World War. When people are not on their guard, a rising leader who is clever enough to give a clear, definite, and forceful expression of the resentment of the people can gain popu- larity much more easily than one who gives an intelligent solution to the problem. Thus Hitler used the chaotic condition of Germany to his own advantage. Then he appealed to the lost honor of the German people. To combat their great humiliation he employed the theory of racial superiority. Having convinced them that pure Germans are superior to all other men, he blamed the collapse of Germany on the al- leged inferior minorities and stirred the peo- ples’ emotions against them. It was like putting a spark to dynamite. The last step was easy. Once a nation allows its emotions to go wild, to be directed against one group, it does not take long for that nation to lose all its liberties and give way to complete moral decay. An analysis of Hitler's methods shows us that eco- nomic insecurity can be a cause of intolerance. Edmund Burke sums it up in three words, ‘Misery breeds discontent.’ Discontent and failure to recognize true values are constant threats to our liberties. The United States is relatively free of misery, but our economic con- ditions are still far from ideal. What then can we do to prevent the spread of intolerance in this country and thus preserve and promote our American way of life? Are we ready to take our fight against intolerance as seriously as the dictators take their cause for the spread of malevolent propaganda? The fight against intolerance is not as easy a battle as it seems. The mistake throughout the ages has been that people felt intolerance could be eradicated by merely preaching good will. This laudable virtue cannot be acquired by sweet- sounding phraseology. It must be bought and paid for dearly. When people are ill-housed, ill-fed and have no sense of security or outlook for the futu re, the teachings of brotherly love fall on deaf ears. Such people will rather look for a scapegoat on whom to pin the cause of their misfortunes. Such people are greedy con- sumers of prejudice. Where hunger enters, rea- son retreats. The first way, then, to overcome intolerance is to make freedom from want uni- versal. But in the second place there must be a sincere desire on the part of every individual to discard his own prejudices. Prejudice is not hereditary. Children are open-minded until they are taught by their elders to look down upon others. It is therefore up to the older genera- tion to help kill the evil of intolerance. It is up to our employers to abolish discrimination in employment. It is up to our educators, our newspapermen, our clergymen, our radio com - mentators, and our parents to rid themselves of all traces of prejudice in order that they may teach youth to recognize the truth and disregard falsehood, and to acquire the quality of honest, independent thinking. We are fighting for the perpetuation of the ideals of Democracy throughout the world. We cannot reach our goal unless we begin at home. Let us remember that a government can be only as good as the mass of its citizens. Only when every individual practices brotherhood can there be hope for brotherhood among all na- tions and a real chance for permanent peace under God. INGER | wee SAE Y