The Spirit of Liberty; L. Hand

ceremonies in Central Park, New York City.

lieve me, these are false hopes. Lib erty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no con stitution, no law, no court can save it; no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not the ruthless, the unbridled will; it is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow. What then is the spirit of lib erty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the minds of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of lib erty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.

And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never be; nay, which never will be ex cept as the conscience and courage of Americans create it; yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspira tions of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in the spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise and with me pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country. • 19 lDcomE WlTHOtJT WORK HENRY HAZLITT A GROUP of social reformers, im patient with the present "rag bag" of measures to combat poverty, propose to wipe it out in a sin gle swoop. The government would simply guarantee to everybody, re gardless of whether or not he worked, could work, or was will ing to work, a minimum income. This guaranteed income would be sufficient for his needs, "enough to enable him to live with dig nity."