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Show THE MEANING OF DEMOCRACY Today this country stands unified, devoted to the proposition prop-osition that here, it nowhere else in the world, democracy shall he preserved and made secure. And the people are coming- to realize that the preservation preserva-tion of the democratic system involves more than merely spending billions for military weapons, important as that is. The preservation of democracy means that we must agaifi analyze the meaning of democracy and ag-ain return to those principles on vhich the nation was founded. Those principles are simple and basic. Certain powers were given to government the power over currency, over national defense, over foreign policy, and so on. Most other powers were reserved to the people. The founders realized that government in a non-producer that all production and creation must come from the individual. And they realized that strict limitation of the activities of government was necessary if freedom Was to live. In recent years we have been drifting away from true democratic government. We have gone a long way toward the ruinous theory that government owes everyone a living. We have destroyed local independence, local pride, local self-sufficiency. self-sufficiency. We have become a nation of beggers, feeding at the public trough. This lias cost us tens of billions in faxes and increased federal debt. Yet, serious as that problem is, it is the least important phase of the trend. Vitally important has been the change for the worse in the American character the loss of those traditional characteristics of independence and self-reliance. Dependence always breeds dictatorship. Dependence De-pendence always menaces liberty, and the democratic way ot life j mocracy is to live, the democratic virtues of self-reliance self-reliance and independence must come back into their own. Government must again be confined to duties given it by the constitution. Industry and individuals must realize again that they can no longer expect manna from Washington for sustenance. Then that democracy of which we talk so much in idle phrases will really survive. Then we shall be strong and secure. : M |