Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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Page Four THE CLINTON CHRONICLE Thursday, April 3, 1952 GOVERNMENT UNLIMITED By MALCOLM McDERMOTT School of Law, Duke University, Democratic Presidential Elector, 1928 •‘The history of liberty is the history of limitations upon the powers of government.” —Woodrow Wilson. Our libraries, our laboratories, our factories are veritable monuments to man’s achievements in the mastery of the forces of nature. Yet there is something vital, something basic that man has failed to learn. The one force man has never learned effec tively to control is government, and therein lies the great secret of hu man ills. You understand, of course, that government is a force. Such is the very nature of government. It is the most potent force known to us hu man beings. It controls and deter mines the lives, the happiness, the destinies of every one of us. It can command even the forces of nature and direct them against its enemies or against its subjects who may dare oppose it. Within its control are life and death, happiness and . misery, freedom and servitude, for every man, woman and child. > We in America have long forgot ten this basic concept of government, for, happily for us, we have hitherto lived under a government that was placed under restraint. But even in this so-called enlightened day well- nigh half the world is controlled by just such governmental power. That is government unlimited. It is at once the most diabolical, the most treacherous, and the most uncontrol lable force known to man. Herein lie strange paradoxes. This force called government is a man made force. Man creates it. It is a necessary force, for it forms the very basis of organized society. It is the foundation of human civilization. LOVELY GIBSON^ 4 To bring Easter joy to everyone. young end old, near and far. SEE OUR BIG DISPLAY-BEST SELECTIONS NOW! J. C. THOMAS, Jeweler ~~ "It’s Time That Counts” CLINTON AND JOANNA SvSir • a- .■*>; w: YOU CAN probably recall many a moment v>Jien reaching somebody—or somebody’s reach- was beyond price. mg you THINK OF ALL the many people you know and the people you need . . . and how easily, how quickly, you can reach them—by telephone. With a lift of your hand! And the number of people you can call is growing all the time. It has more than doubled in the last six years. TELEPHONE service plays an important role in everyday living in town and on the farm . .. and is vital to National Defense. It’s good that telephone service has grown so fast. BIG AND GROWING VALUE! ALWAYS one of your biggest bargains, telephone service is today an even better buy than it was ten years ago ... and a smaller part of the family Budget.—Southern Bell Tele phone and Telegraph Com pany. BEST POSSIBLE SERVICE LOWEST POSSIBLE COST And yet, once it is set in motion, it can enslave man, it can destroy man. While man has learned to cope with the forces of nature, he has never yet learned effectively to cope with this force he himself creates. This war is being fought because a group of nations turned loose, first upon themselves and then upon the rest of the world, this terrible force of government unlimited. It is the same force that has spelled misery j for mankind from the very dawn of. history. It is the force that has. launched wars of aggression, and used men as senseless pawns. While a student at Princeton l' heard Woodrow Wilson make one of! those profound observations for i which he was noted, one that was later embodied in a great public ut-; terance. He said, "The history of lib-j erty is the history of limitations upon the powers of government.” That is true. It is eternally true. Man’s long, hard, slow climb up to liberty andj freedom is found written in the lim-j itations he’has been able from time to' time to place upon this dangerous power called government. The trag edy is that by one device and an other, ambitious men, self-seeking men, ruthless men have succeeded in writing off those restrictions. If you want to know what then happens you have but to look to -the-Germanyl and Japan of today and to the Italy' of yesterday. The double tragedy is that not-only does the force of gov ernment unlimited enslave its own people, but in time it jumps bound aries and seeks to enslave other peoples as well, and then chaos sets in. I am not talking theory. I am dealing with facts demonstrated be fore our very eyes. , - Today we are engaged in a great conflict wherein freedom-loving men are grappling with that force in mortal combat, determined to crush it and bring it under control. In do ing this we shall be simple-minded, indeed, if we at the same time shall unloose the same force within our own country. There is a schodl of thought even here in America that is impatient of limitations upon the powers of gov ernment. Such limitations, these men insist, spell inefficiency and de lay in accomplishing through the; processes of government the great' reforms for which they stand. They' resent any imputation that the ■ chosen leaders wouId abuse the pow- j er of government unlimited commit- ted to them. Let all of this be freely conceded, and still the questions remain, do' we dare remove the limitations on government w’on for us by our fore fathers at great priceT what manner of men will come hereafter to be our leaders; and what will they do with this dangerous power? You may recall an illustration used by Lincoln Steffins when dis-1 cussing corruption in American cit-’ ies. ’Someone asked what was the! basic cause of such corruption. Stef fins replied that in the sad story of the Garden of Eden the real cause of man’s downfall was not the cur iosity of the woman, nor the weak- I ness of the man, nor yet the guile of = the serpeht. It was the apple- That ! — shining, glittering epitome of power attracted all the forces of evil. To- = day we call it a plum. Plums incite corruption. The most attractive, potent plum that can hang on any tree of life is | = that plum I have called government unlimited. To get it, selfish, corrupt — and ambitious men will stake every- thing. It is a continuing incitement — to evil. It is a prize to be gambled' for at any cost. Once it is won, an entire people may be held in bond age. There is one way to eliminate this evil and this danger, and that is by having no such plum. Our forefath- = ers knew this simple truth, and that is why in their wisdom they resolved that the plum of government unlim ited should not hang on the tree of the American body politic. The risk was too great. Some months ago in a talk entitled While free Men Slept” I submitted to a group of lawyers what I had ob served in Germany as to how in that unhappy land this dreadful power of government unlimited was there un leashed. By every subtle means known to seductive demoguges it was laid hold upon, and when final- ly in their grasp it was used not only to lash the German people into com plete submission but also to throw the entire world into conflict. As patriotic Americans we do well to ponder our present plight in the light of the lessons of the past. Those lessons are written large in the blood of men and women who learned to be free, men and women who in their folly entrusted themselves to government unlimited. We are going to win this war, but we naive, indeed, if .we think that will mark an end of our per ils. It can be that in the winning we shall lose the most precious heritage a people ever knew. To paraphrase a scriptural passage, what shall it profit a nation, if it shall gain the whole world and lose its own soul? America can lose her soul. She will lose her very soul when government unlimited is set up in the land. Dr. Fred E. Holcombe i OPTOMETRIST 1 / Offices at 200 South Broad St. Phone 658 Office Hour* 9:M to 5:*f MOTHER’S YOUR BABY’S PHOTOGRAPH 170 17171 r lv Hd Mid • Child Must Be Under School Age YOU RECEIVE ONE 5x7 ENLARGED PORTRAIT, STUDIO VALUE OF $4.00, ABSOLUTELY FREE! TUESDAY - WEDNESDAY APRIL 8-9 Take This Opportunity To Visit Our Store. We Want To Make New Friends and See Our Old Friends Again. -’AGES 3 MONTHS TO 5 YEARS ~ - f — ' 10:## A.M. TO 5:00 P.M,- ONLY ONE FREE PICTURE PER FAMILY, BUT FREE PROOFS WILL BE TAKEN OF ADDITIONAL CHILDREN. A Generous Selection of Your Baby’s Cutest Expressions Will Be Cap tured By the MAGIC CAMERA, operated by Tom Carroll, “Specialist in Child Photography.” Remember, It’s Free, So Doll ’Em Up ... 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