that, as Dr. Stanton Coit puts it, "the thoughts and feelings on religious subjects of all individuals in a nation shall, like the thoughts and feelings in one single brain, be allowed unimpeded interaction and shall constitute one unified and common fund to which each person shall have access."

However far we may be as yet from this ideal, the fight for perfect freedom of belief and utterance in the religious sphere has been definitely won. In the political and economic sphere, on the contrary, there has been recently a reactionary movement, engendered by war-psychology and by the sight of revolutionary chaos abroad, toward the restriction of these elemental rights. Perhaps we may say that freedom of speech in religious matters is unquestioned today largely because people do not take religious differences so seriously as they did; they no longer think that a person will be damned if he has heretical ideas. But they do take differences of economic doctrine seriously; they fear the destruction of society if any radical reorganization of the industrial structure is openly advocated. Or perhaps they fear mainly the restriction of their own privileges and the limitation of their own income. In any case, their dread of economic innovation is so great that it seems to them necessary to curb the time-honored freedom of belief and speech of which America has always been so proud.

Consider, for example, the following facts. During the past few years permits for speeches in halls and out-of-doors have been repeatedly refused to people suspected of radical ideas-including Christian ministers of high reputation, professors in theological schools, editors of reputable journals, and labor leaders of unquestioned personal character. Meetings

gathered to listen to speakers obnoxious to the authorities have been roughly broken up and the speakers forcibly ejected. Not only have the mails. been closed to specific issues of various newspapers and journals, but the second-class mailing privilege has been refused altogether to certain periodicals— the result being, in some cases, to put an end to their publication. Books and pamphlets containing passages disapproved by the authorities have likewise been declared unmailable.

Further, raids have been conducted by the Government against schools, clubs, workingmen's associations, political party headquarters; all persons on the premises have been indiscriminately arrested, regardless of the absence of specific evidence as to their beliefs or utterances. Property has been seized and held without warrant. Great numbers of people have been arrested and sent to jail without warrant. Spies and underground agents have been used by the wholesale to disclose to the Government the names of persons and organizations professing radical ideas. In many cases, the "radical" ideas for which men have been jailed have been in reality no more radical than the ideas of the founders of our nation-as, for example, protests against the infringement of the right of free speech or against the continued impris onment of political prisoners beyond the immediate emergency, the pointing out of obvious evils in the present industrial or social order, the calm discussion of possible improvements upon or alternatives to contemporary institutions.

In the case of aliens in this country suspected of radical sympathies the procedure has been even more violent. Thousands of unoffending working-men have been suddenly summoned before an inspector of

the Bureau of Immigration and subjected to a searching inquisition into their beliefs. Whether or not they have ever joined any radical party or publicly uttered any radical opinions, if their private beliefs, as extracted by this inquisition, are unsatisfactory to the inspector, they can be summarily banished from the United States; and many hard-working men, innocent of all offence save that of holding a minority opinion in the sacred sphere of property or industrial organization, have been arrested, handcuffed, and dragged through the streets like common criminals, sent to jail, without a jury trial, and presently banished from the country.

The various socialist and communist parties, such as exist unmolested in all countries of Europeflourishing openly even under the Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs have lately been treated in this country by the majority in power as criminal organizations. Membership in some of them has been held by the Department of Justice as sufficient ground in itself for the deportation of otherwise unoffending aliens who may have established a home in this country and be looking forward to citizenship. Socialist representatives have been excluded from their seats in our legislatures because of the party to which they belonged; some of these, when re-elected, have again been expelled.

Worse than all this, bills have been passed by State legislatures that lay violent hands upon freedom of teaching. According to these bills no schools are to be allowed whose teachings are not approved by the State authorities, and no teachers are to be given teaching certificates who do not promise to be "loyal to the institutions and laws" of the State-"disloyalty" meaning the advocacy of any important change

therein. City Boards of Education have passed resolutions to withhold diplomas from all public school children who do not sign a pledge that they will oppose all movements "antagonistic to the laws of the United States or tending to subvert the Constitution,"-under which heads any fundamental reform can, of course, be classified. Students professing socialistic ideas have been refused diplomas in law. Many public school teachers have been dismissed because they were suspected of radical leanings or known to be readers of radical publications. Not a few college and university professors have lost their positions for similar reasons. It no longer is wise for a teacher in many of our educational institutions to profess beliefs unpopular with the Powers that Be.

All of this persecution of opinion, which would have seemed incredible in America a few years ago, is the outgrowth of the War. It will, no doubt, gradually die out. But it has persisted, with little public disapproval, for over two years, at date of writing, since the cessation of hostilities; and the extent to which this wave of intolerance has spread over the country is ominous. It shows how little our people have been trained to cherish our American heritage of liberty of opinion.

Yet there is no ideal deeper-rooted in our history. Thomas Jefferson urged, "If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its form, let them stand undisturbed. Let them stand undisturbed as monuments to the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated when reason is free to combat it." Daniel Webster declared that what he would most proudly leave to posterity was his record that in all circumstances he had favored free

dom of opinion, especially freedom for opinions that were in bad repute. President Wilson summed up our national ideal in these words: "If there is one thing we love more than another in the United States, it is that every man should have the privilege, unmolested and uncriticized, to utter the real convictions of his mind."

That many public-spirited Americans have kept this ideal alive in their hearts during the wave of repression following the Great War may be witnessed by the protest against the Government's policy signed by twelve of the most prominent lawyers in the country. These eminent and conservative men wrote, "We make no argument in favor of any radical doctrine, as such, whether socialist, communist, or anarchist. No one of us belongs to any of these schools of thought. Nor do we now raise any question as to the Constitutional protection of free speech and a free press. We are concerned solely with bringing to the attention of the American people the utterly illegal acts which have been committed by those charged with the highest duty of enforcing the laws— acts which have caused widespread suffering and unrest, have struck at the foundation of American free institutions, and have brought the name of our country into disrepute."

We must beware of assuming that America belongs to us alone, and not to those who disagree with us. We must remember what Lincoln said: "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it." To those who seem to us "radicals," or "bourgeois," or "Bourbons," as well as to those who agree with us. It takes many kinds of people to make a great country. It may happen that one class of people, getting into power, is able to run things