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if we had the opportunity. But individualistic ideals, ideas at variance with the accepted point of view, are increasingly the cause of social obloquy and persecution.

It is a serious question whether the tyranny of the majority opinion in a democracy may not be as baneful as the tyranny of an oligarchy. If a reformer today, a man who is earnestly seeking a juster and humaner order, ventures to label his vision "socialism" or "communism," he is in danger of jail; or—if he is an alien-of deportation. Even if he does not so label it, and if in fact he differs essentially from these ostracized views, he may none the less have these labels bestowed upon him by undiscriminating authorities and be equally in danger. It has been said that at the conclusion of a war the victor and vanquished exchange characteristics. It would actually seem as if a breath of Prussianism had been wafted to this land that once boasted of its individual liberty. Instead of seeking the liberation of new ideas, the free development of new ideals, there are many Americans today who are deliberately trying to stamp out ideas which they consider heterodox or radical, and, paradoxically enough, calling themselves in the doing it "One hundred per cent Americans!"

The psychologist can readily understand this reactionary attitude. "The average brain is naturally lazy and tends to take the line of least resistance. The mental world of the ordinary man consists of beliefs which he has accepted without questioning and to which he is firmly attached; he is instinctively hostile to anything which would upset the established order of his familiar world. A new idea, inconsistent with some of the beliefs which he holds, means the necessity of rearranging his mind; and this process

is laborious, requiring a painful expenditure of brainenergy. To him and his fellows, who form the vast majority, new ideas, and opinions which cast doubt on established beliefs and institutions, seem evil because they are disagreeable.

"The repugnance due to the mental laziness is increased by a positive feeling of fear. The conservative instinct hardens into the conservative doctrine that the foundations of society are endangered by any alterations in the structure. It is only recently that men have been abandoning the belief that the welfare of a state depends on rigid stability and on the preservation of its traditions and institutions unchanged. Wherever that belief prevails, novel opinions are felt to be dangerous as well as annoying, and anyone who asks inconvenient questions about the why and the wherefore of accepted principles is considered a pestilent person."

The attitude is intelligible, but it is not one hundred per cent American; it is not one per cent American. It is the continual application of new ideas that has made possible the great development of American business, the great strides of American mechanical invention. We need that same current of fresh ideas turned upon our political and social mechanisms. No doubt there is, and always will be, much individual thinking upon public affairs that is silly, one-sided, or Utopian, inspired by resentments, unfruitful. But even so, it pays to cultivate individuality. In the realm of mechanics a hundred suggestions are made for one that proves useful. Many years of experimenting, and many costly failures, preceded the building of the airplane that could really fly. So in political matters, it is easy to criticize and to propose, and it will be a long process to

disentangle what is good in the babel of voices from what is of no constructive value. But it is only by the utmost encouragement of criticism and the welcoming of variant ideas that we can hope to move on at all.

The true American, then, will not attempt to stifle discussion by calling it "agitation," he will not label ideas with which he disagrees, however vigorously, as "dangerous"; instead of focusing his attention upon the apparent folly of Utopian schemes he will seek to understand the motives that lie behind their construction and the evils that they are meant to remedy. He will realize that from even the wildest radical there may be something to learn; he will, therefore, look for something suggestive in every man's opinions, and glory in that absence of servility to tradition, that prevalence of a critical spirit toward our institutions, and that fertility of inventive thought, which are the best fruits of American individualism.

SUGGESTED READINGS

Sinclair Kennedy, The Pan-Angles, Chap. III.
R. W. Emerson, Self-Reliance (in Essays, vol. I).

Warner Fite, Individualism.

J. M. Mecklin, Introduction to Social Ethics, Chap. III.
Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom.

C. W. Eliot, The Conflict between Individualism and Collectivism in a Democracy.

Josiah Royce, The Philosophy of Loyalty, Chap. II.

Durant Drake, Problems of Conduct, pp. 403-408.

W. E. Weyl, The New Democracy, Chap. IV.

J. A. Smith, The Spirit of American Government, Chap. XII. J. W. Burgess, The Reconciliation of Government with Liberty. C. E. Merriam, American Political Ideas, Chapters XI, XII. Fabian Franklin, in Atlantic Monthly, vol. 120, p. 270.

H. C. Brown, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 26, p. 177. A. K. Rogers, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 26, p. 323. V. S. Yarros, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 29, p. 405. E. A. Ross, in International Journal of Ethics, vol. 30, p. 58.

CHAPTER VI

FREE SPEECH

MOST precious, perhaps, of the forms of freedom on these shores has been the freedom of belief and of public utterance. This has been conspicuously true in the field of religion. We know that the Pilgrims came hither for "freedom to worship God." So it was with the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, the Huguenots, the Quakers, and many others.

True, religious freedom for these early immigrants meant merely the right to hold their views, not the right to hold any views. Roger Williams, a heretic among these heretics, was persecuted almost as fiercely as he would have been in the Old World. Through his efforts, however, together with the generous spirit of Lord Baltimore and William Penn and their followers, farther south, the principle was gradually accepted that the Government should not meddle with religion at all, and that every one should be free to live by the dictates of his own conscience. This ideal of liberty of conscience, so early developed in America, is one of our most distinctive contributions to civilization. Nathaniel Shaler once declared it "the most unique accomplishment of our people." In its application to religion it was embodied in the Virginia Declaration of Rights, June 2, 1776: "All men are equally entitled to the free exercise of religion, according to the dictates of conscience." The Constitution of the United States

forbade the use of any religious test as a qualification for office, and the First Amendment declared that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

This tolerant attitude has been universally accepted in America. All churches are protected, none is to have political control. No sectarian teaching is to be allowed in the public schools. No individual is to suffer disabilities of any sort because of his religious beliefs or disbeliefs. As Roosevelt wrote, in his American Ideals, "We maintain that it is an outrage, in voting for a man for any position, whether state or national, to take into account his religious faith, provided only he is a good American.”

This does not mean that we are an irreligious people. On the contrary, religion flourishes most vigorously where it is free. Political control is never in this country to be used to push any one Church; and conversely, the power of the Church is never to be used to sustain a particular political régime or a privileged social class. But this very divorce of religion from politics means a relaxation of sectarian animosities, an emphasis upon what the religious movements have in common, a growth in mutual respect, which may eventuate in the union of all men of good will in the common, unending war against evil.

The ideal of individual liberty is still incompletely realized while the thought of the various churches is pocketed, each group reading its own denominational literature and living an intellectual and spiritual life of its own. What we need, for the fulfilment of our ideal, is the interflowing of these varied currents of thought, the growth out of them of something larger and more inclusive. We must work to the end

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