Voices for Freedom

December 26, 1949

Some weeks ago the Norwegian weekly Farmand carried an editorial called “Why So Timid?” “One of the phenomena of the postwar period in Norway,” it declared, “is that business has shown no will to defend its interests against the encroachments of the government. . . . Norwegian businessmen with lamblike meekness and patience have let themselves be tricked, abused, and stepped upon. . . . It is up to the individuals to take the trouble of finding out whether Norwegian citizens still have protection under the courts and the Constitution.”

With a few changes in its illustrations, this editorial would apply with striking aptness here. Timidity before the encroachments of government power has, in fact, become worldwide.

We need not go into all the reasons here. One is the bribes to immediate self-interest, (jobs, benefit payments, defense contracts) that a government is able to offer particular groups or persons. Another is the dominance of a statist ideology. But most important of all is the fear of government retaliation. This is the chief cause of the paradox that the greater the tyranny of a government, the less complaint there is against it. In Russia today there is no internal complaint at all, but only frantic competition in flattery. We may lay it down as a political principle that the more power a government has already been permitted to seize, the easier it is for it to seize still further power. Businessmen and public-relations advisers rationalize their timidity in the phrase: “Don’t stick your neck out!”

All the more honor, therefore, to those writers and businessmen who do have the courage to stick their necks out. That is why it was gratifying to read, a few weeks ago, of the presentation of awards by the Freedoms Foundation at Valley Forge to writers and business firms who “spoke up for freedom” in 1949.

Two of the recipients are particularly well known to readers of Newsweek. One is my colleague, Raymond Moley, who received an award for his admirable column on “The Coils of Bureaucracy” (Dec. 13, 1948). The other is Warner & Swasey of Cleveland, whose advertisements in these pages over a period of years in defense of our free-enterprise system have been distinguished for their rare grasp of the virtues of that system and for the compact clarity with which they state those virtues. I wish I had space to refer to other award winners no less deserving.

Unfortunately, however, the majority of business firms seem to be under the illusion that they can sit back and enjoy a free ride while a small courageous minority bears virtually the full burden and expense of defending the private-enterprise system upon which the ultimate prosperity, independence, and existence of every private business firm depends. If this minority, however able, proves too small for the task, the rest will have no one to blame but themselves.

The awards of the Freedoms Foundation are wide-ranging. They cover editorials, magazine articles, radio programs, motion pictures, comic strips, speeches, sermons, and advertising campaigns. But for some strange reason they do not cover books, which usually have the longest life and influence of all. Let us hope that the Freedoms Foundation will add this category.

If it had existed this year, there would have been some outstanding candidates for awards. I have already reviewed on this page Human Action, by Ludwig von Mises (Newsweek, Sept. 19). I should like to add here Economics and the Public Welfare, by the late Benjamin M. Anderson, which is not only the outstanding financial and economic history of the United States for the period from 1913 to the present, but one of the most powerful expositions of the free-market economy and of the distortions caused by shortsighted government interventions. . . . But now there is space only to add the names of John T. Flynn’s The Road Ahead, Felix Morley’s The Power in the People, and F.A. Harper’s Liberty.