University of San Francisco - USF Don Yearbook (San Francisco, CA)

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COXFIJCT OF LAW' AND LIBERTY 9 they—and what method do they use for our redemption? We look, and whom do we see—alas, none more solacing, none more healing than the radicals whose only method for the remedy of an abused right is the abolition of the right itself. W e cannot put much trust in them. For even as we look, we see them begin pompously to strut about the national stage, confident of the efficacy and merit of their plans. Their plans, indeed! Yes, the enlightened scheme which their twentieth century wisdom has evolved and by means of which the guardian angel of conscience ruling us with the flaming sceptre of righteousness and truth is to be supplanted by what—a uniformed policeman. who swings a menacing club. And amid it all. even as we thus hastily examine the poor misdirected efforts which they are pleased to term their plans, we can hear the voice of self-centered egotism, the characteristic of hopeless visionaries chanting up through the darkness of its ignorance—“Our human legislation will succeed where morals, religion, yea God Himself has failed.” Surely this is sweet music with which to lull their reason into rosy dreams and pleasant slumberings. Are we the defenders of drunkenness and vicious excess, because we say these things? Reflect, before you reply, upon the issues involved upon the principles imperiled—upon the insidous dangers that surge in the wake of moral reforms that are bought with the sacrifice of a cherished traditional freedom. If you so reflect, your answer can be easily anticipated. For having revolved all these things in your minds, you must if you are true Americans, stand forth and give answer in some such manner as this: “We, after thoughtful consideration, untainted by any form of prejudice, are firmly convinced that first, the abolition of the rights of all because of the abuses of the few. is an unjust, undemocratic, and wholly un-American principle, and that as such it should never be permitted to disfigure with its presence the glorious Con-

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8 run igx.it .ix live legislation, a creature which, in the character of a multitude of your neighbors, may one day reach into the sacred precincts of your home and dictate your conduct in matters of a purely personal nature. Vet this is America—and the members of that despotic throng will dare to call themselves Americans. W hat mockery i this? What sacrilegious violation of all that our forefathers held closest to their hearts? And who are these usurping pillagers who here in the time-hallowed temples of democracy would hurl down from their accustomed niches the statues of equality and freedom and set themselves up as the sole arbiters of virtue that their opinions may become the criteria of our morality ? Who are they, we cry—and the answer is at once apparent. They are the self-constituted angels of reform, the heckling, probing, narrow-visioned magicians who by waving the wand of prohibitive legislation, are going to transform their less holy, less enlightened brothers into radiant angels of incorruptible virtue. They are rather the helpless mortals who think they have found in prohibitive legislaton. the necessary prop to the weakness of their own wills. And this is the type of men who have so far succeeded in deluding a host of your fellow-citizens that they too now cry that to save you and me from the ravening beasts of appetite which exist within ourselves, the State and not our God-given conscience must regulate, and dictate our most secret, most personal habits and actions. Oh, how degenerate have we become—how far fallen in virtue below the standards of our ancestors—if now with all the material advantages of our superior education and vaunted culture to aid us—we yet must call on government legislation to support our weakling wills in the battles of the aspirate souls. I»ut there have arisen those who would help us, they say in our plight. Who arc

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10 THE IGX ATI AX stitution of these United States; second, that the possible benefits to be derived from prohibitive legislation are in their insignificance, incomparable with the most precious possession of the American citizen—his sacred personal liberty; and that lastly, we believe that any movement naturally antagonistic to our individual freedom, is fraught with latent dangers to the peace and unity of our republic.” That, ladies and gentlemen, must be your answer, as American citizens: and now let us together review that last, most vital portion of it, namely, the dangers that threaten our national unity and harmony. To-day, there stands on the highroads of our national existence, a glaring searchlight. Its brilliant circumference has become the cynosure of the eyes of many who travel the road and to them blinded by the staring whiteness of its light, all objects which lie farther along the highway are concealed in contrasting gloom. If we would pierce the darkness, we must shield our eyes from the glare. That searchlight is social betterment, the splendid beacon of those whose aim is prohibitive legislation. The travelers attracted by the blazing glory of its surface are those who, misled by the loftiness of their idealism, have become oblivious to all else, and their blinded eyes are the eyes of their once practical but now dazzled rationality. The objects which lie hidden in the shadows are the latent dangers of moral reforms, accomplished by Federal laws. Xow, in my own limited way, have attempted in the preceding portion of my speech to construct a shield of unsentimental truth, which, by shading the eyes of our reason from the confusing glare of that light of social betterment, we may be enabled to penetrate the obscurity beyond and examine, one by one. the shrouded dangers that are consequent upon prohibitive legislation. The source of all the perils that jeopardize our peace and unity to-day, is a strong, popular tendency toward State paternalism; the condition which creates between