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Show Page 2 UTAH FARM BUREAU MARCH 1968 NEWS FOURTH IN A SERIES: KLINE ON FREEDOM BT: ALLAN B. KUNE Allan Kline retired from the Presidency of die American Farm Bureau Federation in 1954 after many years of service to the organization. His interest in the principles for which Farm Bureau stands remains undimmed, as disclosed in this article, the fourth in a series, drawn from lectures on freedom given by Kline in recent years. "Ten Days in Apri Report on a Subcellar Meeting at NYU The French had a revolution, too. Oh, yes, Louis the XIV was a stinker, but his successors didnt prove to be so hot, either. The French cried liberty, equality and fraternity. Their Constitution was supposed to guarantee and define the rights of man forever. They gave the central Assembly the peoples body sovereign powers. What did they get? They got the Terror, they got Robesan Emperor. pierre and they ended up with Napoleon After the Terror, they concluded that a tyranny of one was better than a tyranny by everybody. The mood had worked the guillotine to a white heat and the blood ran in the streets. At the last, it wasnt the blood of the nobility or the aristocrats. By contrast, the Americans looked at history, and, in setting up their government worked to avoid any form of highly powerful central authority which took precedent over meaningful decisions of the people. They diffused the authority among several branches of government. DeToqueville was a young French nobleman who chanced to get a commission to come to America to study the prison system. He was fascinated with what the Americans had done in the way of government. He wished to get the French to learn the American secret. He traveled all over America observing. He says that America succeeded because she is orderly, she is committed to a deep sense of right, to a participation in government by the people and to responsibility of the individual. He said that the town halls were the important seats of government. They helped to prevent the centralization of power that had heretofore ruined republics. DeToqueville noted that while America did not have as strong a police force as France, there was less crime than in France. He said that the reason was that the people thought of the government and the community as their property. They either own property or hope to get some, so theyre interested in stopping crime. He noted that in the French Revolution the emphasis was on equality. Tin's insistence on equality led to a tyranny of the majority. The tyranny of the jacobins was the most vicious you could imagine. Where 51 take is no protection for the other 49 over power there basic which are accepted as a responsibility of no rights government to protect. Then, freedom doesnt amount to much. The American Constitutional Conventionists were not in favor of permitting men with the power of concensus to ride over the opposition and destroy their rights. said that there are dangers in equality! You cannot control the power and spread it through the majority so it ends up in a dictatorship. The dictatorship may at first be kind and mild. It leads the people gently. It encourages dependency. It does everything for the people. What is left but to save the people all the trouble of thinking and all the trouble of living? DeToqueville said this in 1834. What he meant is getting easy to recognize! In America, he said, the government is not dangerous to the liberties of the people because it is divided and diffused, because a lot of it is not central government anyway, but particularly because the national government does not have state and local jurisdiction. He said that where any republican form of government is replaced with a central administration the most insufferable concentration of absolute power would develop. Where it reaches down to deal with individual interests, freedom will joon vanish from the country. We are getting a lot of local administration by Washington in the past few years. Away back in 1834, DeToqueville said, The American relies on personal interest to accomplish his ends, and gives free scope to the unguided strength and the common sense of the people. The Russian centers all the authority of society in a single arm. The principal instrument of the former is freedom; of the latter, servitude. Their starting point is marked out by the will of Heaven to sway the destinies of half the globe. De-Toquevi- lle 9 9 The accompanying article is an excerpt from the March 1 issue of U.S.A., a published by Alice Widener, nationally syndiLeft, Old and New. cated columnist and authority on the bi-wee- so-call- ed At New York University, over the weekend of February 10-1Students for a Democratic Society held a regional conference to help plan a program for 10 days of violence and Similar regiondisruption in U.S. communities on April 21-3universities other were held at al conferences pursuant to decisions reached last December by the SDS National Council 1, 0. at a meeting in Bloomington, Ind. Formal notice of the Feburary conference was published in Fire- bomb, the SDS daily newsletter, which stated: An organization a ours takes like, major step forward when it finally comes to understand that it is involved in a struggle against an enemy and takes major steps toward confronting that enemy head on. A serious organization consciously seekto ing develop a revolutionary practice creates a dynamic within the society it is trying to destroy and recreate. When SDS decides at its National Council meeting that it can begin a coordinated national program to expose and attack the imperialist nature of our society, the organization puts its existence on the line . . . The F lrebomb editorial we nt on to say that the ten days in April program gives SDS members a vehicle for pulling our organization together as a real political force in America. It declared that lack of unity has caused SDS members to fall victim to repression, and cited as examples: In Iowa the entire City leadership of a vital SDS chapter has been given sentences ranging up to five years for conspiracy. In Berkeley, seven of our brothers from the Stop the Draft Week steering committee have been Indicted for conspiracy with possible sentences ranging up to 10 years. Undeterred by such setbacks, the New York SDS went on to say in We've got from now Firebomb: until April to organize the hell out of this city. Then we open up and confront the power structure and the people, and if we survive the confrontation we organize some more. At the same time, our brothers and sisters will be pulling themselves together all life-or-de- over the country. To what end? The answer is; To carry out a program described by members as Ten Days to Shake the Empire. By empire the United SDS members mean Their slogan is taken States. from John Reed's description of the Bolshevik Revolution in RusTen Days That Shook sia as the World. ath UTAH It is absurd for news analysts and TV commentators to pin their discussion of radical Marxist organizations, such as Students fora Democratic Society, on the terms New Left and Old Left. The New Left has been shaped and indoctrinated by the Old Left, just as young Communist BettinaApptheker was fathered by aging Communist Herbert Aptheker. Naturally, many present day circumstances are different from those of a generation and more ago, but the basic Ideology and revolutionary tactics used by Bolsheviks, terrorists and anarchists in Europe and the U.S. more than 60 years ago are exactly like those used today by radicals, youthful Leftist terrorists and anarchists in this country and so-call- ed abroad. Any law abiding, patriotic Amwho doubts the similarity ought to study the facts about erican Students for a Democratic Society in the New York area. It is impossible to report verbatim on most of what was said at the SDS meeting on Saturday afternoon in the steamheated, poorly ventilated subcellar of Weinstein Hall. The language was as foul as the stench of the 200 students there, many of whom were physically filthy. Outdoors the weather was bitter cold. Indoors, the students took off coats and heavy sweaters, leaving them piled on the floor in heaps that stank like the tons of uncollected garbage piled high on city streets. 3 An overall theme of SDS today is that 1968 can be the 1905 of the American revolution. What the radical students mean is that they know they cannot overthrow the U.S. government at the present time, but they expect that their violent revolutionary activities, even though put down this year, will compel police to use force against students and thus create resentment against government in the same manner as the unsuccessful Marxist-inspire- d Russian revolution of 1905 did against the czar -1st regime. At the NYU position paper - Politcal Resistance conference, Toward - was dis- tributed. Among the statements contained therein are the following: In the last year or so, the movement has come from dissent to resistance. We have organized in local communities and on campus, and we have engaged in ever more militant demonstrations. Instead of marching around in a circle behind police barricades, we have moved to direct confrontations with the war machine and the cops. (Continued on page 3) Published each month by the Utah Farm Bureau Federation at Salt Lake City, Utah. Editorial and Business Office, 629 East Fourth South, Salt Lake City, Utah. POSTMASTER: Please address PO Form 3579 to PO Box 11668, Salt Lake City, Utah 84111. Subscription cents per year to members is inprice of twenty-fiv- e cluded in membership fee. Entered as second class matter March 24, 1948 at the Post Office at Salt Lake City, Utah under act of March 3, 1879. UTAH FARM BUREAU FEDERATION OFFICIALS Elmo W. Hamilton, Riverton, Utah President S. Jay Child, Clearfield, Utah Vice President Mrs. Willis Whitbeck, Bennion, Utah Chairman, Farm Bureau Women V. Allen Olsen Executive Secretary Kenneth J. Rice Editor DIRECTORS Alden K. Glenn T. Barton Mark Nichols Dr. W. H. Bennett Baird, Jr Dr. D. Wynne Thorne a a Salt Lake City Salt Lake City Logan Logan Logan DIRECTORS Mrs. Willis Whitbeck, Farm Bureau Women; Mrs. Paul Nelson, Farm Bureau Women; Ken Ashby, Form Bureau Young People; Frank Harris, Beaver; A. Alton Hoffman, Coche; LloydOlsen. Cache; Ferris Allen, North Box Elder; William C. Douse, Carbon; S. Jay Child. Davis; Carl VanTassel, Duchesne; Kenneth Brasher, Emery; Lowell Henrie, Garfield; Richard Nelson, Iron; Roy Bowles, Juab; Graydon Robinson, Kane; Leo Robins, Millard; Mark Thackeray, Morgan; Ambrose Dalton, Piute; Roy Hoffman, Rich; Elmo Hamilton, Salt Lake; Arion Erekson, Salt Lake; Elmer Sanders, Salt Lake-- , Ashton Harris, San Juan; Lee Barton, Sanpete; Gerald Johnson. Sevier; D O. Roberts, Summit; Jack Brown, Tooele; Roland Merkley. Uintah; Don T. Allen, Utah; Eldon Money, Utah; Glade Gillman, Utah; Emer Wilson, Wasatch; Don F. Schmutz, Washington; Hugh King, Woyne; William C. Holmes, Weber; Carl Fowers, Weber; Lorin Hardy, Weber; John P. Holmgren, South Box Elder; Gay Pettingill, Utah Society; John Roghaar, Intermountain Formers Assn.; Virgil H. Peterson, Utah Sugar Beet Growers Assn,-- Tom Lowe Utah Canning Crops Assn.; Joe I. Jacobs. Producers Livestock Marketing Assn.; J. R. Garrett, Norbest Turkey Growers Assn; M. E. Carroll, Country Mutual Life. Horti-cultur- |