“This gigantic worldwide struggle more and more takes on the form of war to the death. We shall do well and wisely so to face and so to enter it. And we must all take part. Indeed, we all are taking part in that struggle, whether we will or not. Upon its final issue, liberty lives or dies.
“This earth-wide conflict has taken the form of seizing without compensation from the man who has, and giving to the man who has not; of taking from the worker the fruits of his work, and giving to the idler who does not work. It has from its very nature become an economic, uncompensated leveling downward, not upwards of the whole mass. That this result may in one country be reached by confiscatory taxation, and in another by direct seizure, is a mere matter of method. The results is the same. In some countries outright seizure and confiscation are already openly and shamelessly practiced. All is done in the name of the state, as if it were deity – as if the state, not God gives all. Even into the field of family relationship, which, next to man’s relationship to God, is the most precious and dearest of all relationships, this modern State is thrusting its polluting hand. In some lands this new State is robbing the parents of custody of their children, it is forbidding the parents to teach and admonish the children in the ways of righteous living; it is teaching the children that officers of State, not God, shall be looked to for a guide as to standards of life! Into the field of religion, the holy of holies of the soul of man, this modern world State also enters, to dethrone God and exalt the State into God’s place. This is the archest reason of them all! For man robbed of God becomes a brute. This sin must be felt, not told, for words cannot measure the height and breadth of this iniquity; nor can human mind encompass the punishment of those who shall commit this sin.”
Original Source
J. Reuben Clark, Jr.
1938 Vital Speeches
Vol. IV, No. 18 (July 1938), pp. 564
Quoted in: http://www.latterdayconservative.com/articles/j-reuben-clark-quotes-on-freedom-america-constitution-liberty/
Accessed: 30/7/2016