Proclaim Liberty!

l Vi

e are in to

ecame a nation, a power exist

munitions, but about men and women; it deals with the unity we have to create, the victory we have to win; it deals with the cha

hy the war was inevitable. A fifty-mile bus trip outside of New York-perhaps even a subway ride within its borders-would have proved both of these statements blandly and dangerously false. American unity could not be made in Japan; like most other imports

ive in the world we are now creating. I am therefore not writing frivolously, or merely to testify to my devotion; I am writing to persuade-to uncover sources of strength which others may have overlooked, to create new weapons, to stir new thoughts. If I thought the war for freedom could be won by writing lies, I would write lies. I am afraid the

onal life. We have seen it happen in France and Poland and Norway and Holland; but we cannot imagine that the Nazis intend actually to appoint a German Governor General over the Mississippi Valley, a Gauleiter in the New England provinces, and forbid us to read newspapers, go to the movies or drink coffee; we cannot believe that the Axis intends to destroy the character of America, annihilating the liberties our ancestors fought for, and the level of comfort which we cher

y (Axi

orld and the enslavement of the American people by depriving them of their liberty and of their wealth. The actual physical slavery of the American people and the deliberate taking over of our factories and farms and houses and motor cars and radi

o not intend to make Venice a tributary city, nor Essen a factory town run by American government officials. We may police the streets of Berlin until a democratic government proves its strength by punishing the SS and the Gestapo, until t

ward the Japanese our unclarified intentions are simple: annihilation of the power, to such an extent that it cannot rise again-as a

compel us to think desperately about the kind of peace for which we are fighting. The vengeful articles of the treaty of Versailles were written after the Armistice by politicians; the constru

of any kind unless we know why an Axis peace means annihilation for us; and why, at the risk of

y Axis standards, Pearl Harbor was the final incident of one series of events, the first incident of another, all having the same

ter of the two groups of nations; in all great tragedy, the reason has to be found in the character of those involved; the war is tragic, in noble prop

ys us in our present crisis, and so creates our fut

of the Japanese military caste, the jackal aggression of Mussolini, the brutality and falsenes

ain why we are a danger to t

ric Ne

roy democracy or go down in the attempt; the New Order and the New World cannot exist side by side, because they are both expanding forces; they have touched one another and only one will survive. We might blindly let the new despotism live although it is the most expansive and dynamic force since 1776; but it canno

by Capital's own young sadists, the Storm Troopers, called in by the frightened bankers and manufacturers of Italy and Germany. That is why, since 1932, realist democrats have known that the enemy had to be Hitler, not Stalin. It was not a choice between ideologies; it was a choice between degrees of expansion. Moreover, Stalin himself recognized the explosive force of fascism in Germany and shrank within his own borders; he withdrew factorie

e fact is that we are a transatlantic base for England's fleet; so long as we are undefeated, the fleet remains a threat to Germany. Look at the other side: we are a potential transpacific base for Russia; our fleet ca

must be destroyed, its future must turn black and bitter; because fasci-feudalism, the n

the will of the individual. The democracies insist that the rich complexity of the world was created by democratic freedom and that production, distribution, security and progress have not yet outstripped the capacity of man, so that there is room for the private life, the undisciplined, even the un-social. The essential democratic belief in "progress" is not a foolish optimism, it is basic belief in

they may indoctrinate their people to love poverty and ignorance, to fear independence; for fascism, the next twenty years are critical. Unless we, the democ

ictories. And we are equally compelled, for our own safety, to destroy the principle which tries to destroy us. The alternative to victory over America is therefore not defeat-or an inconclusive truce. The alternative is annihilatio

d the purpose of their military expansion is to exclude certain nations from the markets of the world. Even for t

ber prices, for instance; we have profited by it, as when we refused to sell helium to Germany or when our tariff laws kept Britain and France out of our markets, so that they

ion in

he future. But the reactionary revolution of Mussolini and Hitler instantly captivated the rich and well-born; to them, fascism was not a mere protection against the Reds, it was a positive return to the days of absolute authority; it was the annihilation of a hundred and fifty years of Democracy, it blotted out the French and American Revolutions, it erased the names of Napoleon and Garibaldi from Cont

d their incompetence by the end of 1929; but their frivolous and irresponsible minds were exposed years earlier when they began to support the power which by its own confessed chara

g of the Communists' Millenium; but the sceptic can admire the cool analysis of the past by which M

system liv

n it the germ of

ls. (Gutenburg and Leonardo and a thousand others broke through its intellectual w

that Democratic Capitalism i

umber of prosperous families was not in his calculations and he might have been surprised to see the least, not the most, industrialized country fall first into Communism. But to the sceptic only one thing in the Marxian prophecy is important. He says t

hecy seemed to have been fulfilled. There are apparently some Americans who wish tha

moves backward from democratic capitalism, it moves into the system which democracy destroyed-the feudal system. The capitalist system may be headed for slow or sudden death if it goes on as it is; it may ha

e Asiatic state which never abandoned it. Now we recognize the Nazi or Fascist party as the equivalent of feudal nobles and in "labor battalions" we see the outlines of serfs cringing fr

they declared war on us; but we will not win the war until we understand that the Axi

own and

atic systems cannot co-exist, but in fact, feudal Japan did exist in 1830 and the United States was enjo

is path is everywhere. The defender of the wall must destroy the invader before he comes near. In commercial terms, the fascists must conquer

gave up the right to manufacture motor cars, the right to buy or sell tires; we accepted an allotment of sugar; we abandoned the right to go into the business of manufacturing radio sets; we allowed t

ild of watchmakers accepted or rejected an applicant. By this limitation, the total number of watches produced was roughly governed; the price was also established (a

all seriously limited. The supply of materials was regulated by the State, the number of radios to be exported was set by the State in connection with the purchase of strategic imports; the State could encourage or prevent the importation of coffee or helium or silk stocki

s we abolish the cuff on our trousers and we use agate pots instead of aluminum; we work longer hours and work hard

ate is organized at peace-to out-pro

onomic war. A vast amount of their production went into tanks and Stukas; another segment went into export goods to be trade

oks-and Un

level fell, to prevent criticism and conflict. Because liberals were tortured and books burned and Jews and Catholics given over to satisfy a frightful appetite for hatred, the people of Germany were kept longer at their work, and got less and less butter, and made more and more steel to undersell us in Soviet Russia or the Argentine; they made also more and more submarines to sink our ships if we ever came to war. Every liber

or the Germans and the Japanese, literally, actually, on their terms, in factories bossed by their local representatives; and anything less than complete victory for us means that we wo

e form of society which will last forever; the basis of democracy is change (which we call progress). Hitler announces that nazism will last a thousand years; the Japanese assert that their society has lasted longer; and the voice of Mussolini, when it used to be heard, spoke o

our process is theirs. They exclude and we penetrate; they have to destroy liberty in order to control making and buying and selling and using steel and bread and radios, and we have to create liberty in order to create more cus

around nations normally free and friendly to us; and the Axis must make us into fascists because there

hen action is needed and democracies seem to do nothing but talk. The truth is that our Executive is tremendously prompt and unhampered in war time; the appeaser of fascism does not tell the truth; he wants an end to talk, which is dangerous, because he is always at war and the secret fascist would have to admit that his perpetual war is against the people of the United States. So he says only that in moder

mind occurs in a page of Arthur Koester's Da

1 is all for potash; therefore B. and the thirty had to be liquidated as saboteurs. In a nationally centralized agriculture, the alternative of nitrate or potash is of enormous import

h when he recommended nitrogen. If he was not, according to their ethics he should be shot, even if it should subsequently be shown that nitrogen would have been bett

d faith is of no interest. He who is in the wrong must pay; he who is in the

the tough school which kills its enemies first and then finds out if they were guilty. The reason we allow a scientist to cry for nitrates after we have decided on potash is that we have to keep scientific investigation alive; we cannot trust ourselves for too long to the potash group. In five years, both nitrate and potash may be discarded because we have found something better. And no scientist will for long retain his c

us because it is a clue to the weakness of Hitlerism and it provi