A Defeat on the Home Front; J. E. McAdoo

All property owners became members of an Association, and an elected Board of Directors has seen to the mechanics of· collecting assessments and paying bills. Every lot has been sold, and nearly every lot now has a house upon it. While privacy may not have been the foremost advantage of our location, those who bought and built here demonstrated a ,villing ness to accept the responsibilities Mr. McAdoo is an Investment Counselor and free lance writer in Florida. associated with private streets. Recently, however, memhers of our Association were urged by the Board of Directors to vote for a proposal to dedicate our streets to the town. The argument advanced for doing so was to "eliminate" the responsibility of members for any future street repairs and re paving. The anticipated expense, rather than being met by an as sessment of members, would thus fall to the town. Our Board, prior to the vote, pointed out that the Town Com mission had no plans to remove certain attractive banyan trees that grace the centers of two streets. By implication, however, they would have the right to do so if the dedication carried. To that extent, the surrender of our rights, along with our responsibilities, was clear to all.

The vote was 90 "yes" and one "no." If the Town Commissioners had marched upon our private domain and demanded our streets by threats of. force, they almost cer tainly would have encountered vig orous, and even unanimous, re203 204 THE FREEMAN April sistance. Under such unlikely circumstances, the threat to our freedom would have been clear: an abridgment of our rights with respect to private property. With out a doubt, most of our residents would have defended not only the right to share in the ownership of private streets, but the right to maintain them as we saw fit. The members of our Association are all freedom-loving Americans. They are intelligent, friendly neighbors. Many have defended our nation's freedom in the World Wars, Korea, or Viet Nam. Of the 90 who voted "yes," not one could have regarded his vote as a willing surrender of his freedom. Yet, a change has taken place: the responsibility for our streets, along with the rights inherent in that responsibility, has been shifted from a volunt"ary Associ ation of a few families, to a unit of government. The nature of that change is not altered by the eager ness of our members to e1i.minate a responsibility, nor by our will ingness to relinquish our rights.

-The character of our loss would be the same if our rights had been taken by force. Only our attitude would have differed. The Declaration of Independ ence, at least that part we have memorized, makes no reference to responsibilities. Still, upon reflec tion, we might conclude that if we truly are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, it must be because we are at the same time charged by our Creator with certain inescapable responsi bilities. To the degree we transfer our responsibilities to others, to the same degree we surrender the rights which are intrinsic to them. One important way in which we can defend our rights, as a nation and as individuals, is to hold tenaciously to our personal respon sibilities. No headlines will lament the loss of our few private streets. Huntley and Brinkley will not re port this transfer as a blow to our country's freedom. Even our own Association membership will not feel a whit less free. But small as the import may appear, we have given up some of our rights by retreating from a personal re sponsibility. The same freedom we would be willing to die for, we have just given away on Main Street.

It was a minor skirmish, and no real contest. Freedom lost. Hope fully, a consideration of this en counter might stir some thought as to the subtle connections be tween rights, responsibilities, and freedom. The connections are there, and we can profit by them. If we do, then at some other time, in some other place, freedom might win. ~ CLARENCE B. CARSON fuglaub 14. THE DECLINE OF ENGLAND ENGLAND'S DECLINE began in the interwar years between World War I and World War II. To all appearances, England was still a great world power. The sun never set on the British flag; indeed, it had less chance of doing so in the interwar years than before. The British navy no longer quite ruled the seas, but no other did either. In the gatherings of great powers, England must still be present or consulted. Yet the inner strength which had given England power and influence around the world was decaying. The decline was political, economic, moral, reli gious, and social. Before exploring the signs of decline, it needs to Dr. Carson, Professor of History at Grove City College, Pennsylvania, will be remembered for his earlier FREEMAN series, The Fateful Turn, The American Tradition, and The Fli4ht from Reality.