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Show ON FREE SPEECH William Allen White, . Sage of Emporia, wrote an editorial edi-torial on free speech at a time when he was engaged in a dispute dis-pute with Governor Henry Allen, another famous Kansas editor, which won for him a Pulitzer prize that year. Titled "To an Anxious Friend" and published July 27, 1922, the editorial contains truths as valid today as at the time published. pub-lished. "You tell me that law is above freedom of utterance. And I reply that you can have no wise laws nor free enforcement of wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people-and, alas, their folly with it. I5ut if there is freedom, free-dom, folly will die of its own poison, and the wisdom, will survive, sur-vive, That is the history of the race. It is the proof of man's kinship with God. You say that freedom of utterance is not for time of stress, and I reply with the sad truth that only in time of stress is freedom of utterance in danger. No one questions it in calm days, because it is not needed. And the reverse is true also; only when free utterance is suppressed is it needed, and when it is needed, it is most vital to justke. Peace is good. But if you are interested in peace through force and without free discussion, that is to say, free utterance decently de-cently and in order-your interest in justice is slight. And peace without justice is tyranny, no matter how you may sugar-coat it with expediency. This state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because in the end, suppression leads to violence. Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression. Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace; and whoever tramples upon the plea for justice, temperately made in the name of peace, only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood. When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line. "So, dear friend, put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold-by voice, by posted post-ed card, by letter or by press. Reason never has failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world." . - |