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Show Kathleen Norris Says: What Price America? n-H Syndlc.to WNU Service.) i 05 Gather the youngsters into your house for debate and coffee and doughnuts, ' once a week. Let Oiem know that under their own constitution they can introduce any changes they wish; that it is the miracle and privilege of democracy that it can change and develop with the changing world. By KATHLEEN NORRIS DEMOCRACY can only work if the members of that democracy work for it. Democracy can only be proved a success, among the varied types of government the world has tried and is trying, if every one of us wakes herself out of the slumber of centuries and asks herself what democracy is, and whether it's a good thing, and whether it's worth fighting for. And when I say "fighting" I don't mean with guns and I bombs, for my own profound belief, after more than 20 years active service in the cause of world peace, is that no gun and no bomb ever-did anything to defend democracy democ-racy or establish anything else that is good. I mean fighting with God's own weapons of brotherhood, service, sympathy, understanding. These are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety and fear of the Lord all of which are the true weapons, and the powers of evil can never stand against them. Democracy Challenged. Our fight for democracy must go on in our homes, through the little daily job that we have to meet and solve, and unless it succeeds there it is going to fail in the world. For never since its very beginnings has it been challenged as it is challenged today. A democracy which in our form is a republic means that the people rule. They look at their candidates, they decide which ones they like, and they put those men into power. Fascism, Nazi-ism and Communism mean that the people are told what to do, eat, spend, wear, think and say. Monarchies and Czarisms and oriental rule also meant this. The thin little fringe of places and peoples peo-ples who believe in democracy is diminishing now to a very small percentage indeed. Unless we defend de-fend it it will vanish from the earth. Good men and wise men from the days of the Greeks and Romans have been dreaming of world republicanism, repub-licanism, world democracy. Plato dreamed of it, Sir Thomas More dreamed of it. Washington saw the great vision, and through bewilderment bewilder-ment and desertions, treason and poverty and failure and despair, brought it to birth. We possess it What Is Freedom Worth to You? But how much do you care about it? How much is it worth to you that America shall go on as America, Amer-ica, free of speech, free of press, free to worship God in her own way? Do you care enough to read one or two books of the thousands that are being circulated now, telling you what other countries are doing, and how their ways differ from ours? Are you willing to say some evening in the near future: "George, let's go to that meeting, or that rally, or that lecture or that debate, and see what these candidates are like and what they are promising and planning?" plan-ning?" Do you care enough to know the answers to your children's questions when those children speak airily of the superior methods of Russia, or slightingly of the greatest country in the world, which is their own. If you don't, if you still think the most absorbing problems in the world are those of getting the spare-room spare-room blankets cleaned and being sure the lower pie-crust is good and crisp, then you don't deserve to be an American, you don't deserve to live in a democracy, and you're do- STICKIN-TFIE-ML'D? your most absorbing problems in the. world are those of meal planning, getting the attic cleaned or seeing that young Teddy wears his rubbers, then you dont deserve to live in a democracy. At least, that's the way Kathleen h'orris feels. Her view is that you should exercise your mind study, read, discuss, digest the world changes going on about you. Dont miss this straight-to-the-poinl argument. ing your bit to aid the totalitarian governments. Every Voice Needed. Don't think that because you live on a limited income in a rented house and run just a little over the budget every month that your voice isn't needed and isn't valuable. Great national changes don't necessarily neces-sarily come from privileged men. Lincoln, Napoleon, Stalin, Mussolini, Hitler and countless others knew the sharp touch of poverty and lived the I first third of their lives in obscurity. The reason the dictators have gained so strong a hold is because nine-tenths of the men and women they rule are abysmally ignorant of what is going on, of their cwn rights and powers. Don't keep yourself in that group unless you want to see our own country menaced by the forces that are honestly convinced that the dictators' way is the right way. Our share of citizenship now, as American women, is to demonstrate just what is true democracy, to perfect per-fect our own system. It is for us to do away with unemployment, poverty, pov-erty, slums, to discourage false philosophies, phi-losophies, to upbuild the faith of our great forefathers. If you can do that for the smallest spot in the smallest of our towns or villages, you will be doing an incalculable in-calculable service to America. The ways of doing it are infinite. First Line of Defense. Study unemployment and housing and hospitalization and sanitation in your own community, for instance. Find out why youngsters in high school and college are taking to European Eu-ropean ideas; gather the youngsters into your house for debate and coffee cof-fee and doughnuts, once a week. Stop lamenting that undergraduate morals are something deplorable and the half-baked Communism those children are talking is really frightening, and do something about it. Let them know that under their own Constitution they can introduce any changes they wish; that it is the miracle and privilege of democracy democ-racy that it can change and develop with the changing world. Women who are unwilling to make this effort, to uproot themselves from the age-old laziness of not thinking or acting at all in national and international affairs, women who don't know the names of their representatives in Washington, nor how those representatives are voting vot-ing on questions of vital importance to every wife and mother, needn't be surprised or horrified if American Ameri-can democracy really does totter under un-der oppression from abroad. War naturally destroys democracy for the time being; the individual cannot can-not have any opinion in war; he obeys, and he does nothing but obey. He serves in the ranks or in the munitions factories, he kills, is wounded, dies, without one moment of freedom. This is inevitable. A Plan Necessary. But when the wars are over and someday they will be ended, then it will be for us to build a new Amei ica, even as they will have to begin to rebuild shattered Europe. And that will be the time for us to decide de-cide between a dictator who will tell us that he knows exactly what we must do, or follow a wise and safe democratic plan of our own. |