Show THE AMERICAN WAY Barbarians Within By B George Peck On May 23 1857 Thomas Babington Lord Macauley wrote from London England to his American friend Congressman Congress Congress- man H. H E E. Randall of New York In this letter he predicted that in the Century America would experience a severe period of depression when of artisans will be fairly fairly fairly fair fair- ly brought to the test Distress everywhere makes the laborer labor labor- er mutinous and discontented and inclines him to listen with eagerness to agitators who tell him it is a monstrous iniquity that one man should have a million while another one cannot cannot cannot can can- not get a full meal Space does not permit reproducing here the entire letter letter letter let let- ter but I would like to quote one significant paragraph from fromI I lit it it I seriously apprehend that you will in some season of adversity as I have described do things which will vill prevent prosperity from returning that you will act like people in a year of scarcity devour all the seed-corn seed and thus make the next year not of scarcity but of absolute distress The distress distress distress dis dis- dis- dis tress will vill produce fresh spoilage There is nothing to st stay stY Y you Your Constitution is all sail and no anchor As I said before when society has entered on this downward progress either cither civilization or liberty must perish Either some Caesar N or 01 Napoleon will seize the reins of government with a strong hand or your Republic will be as fearfully plundered and laid waste by barbarians in the Century as the Roman Empire was in the Century with this difference that the Huns and Vandals who ravaged the Roman Empire came from without without without with with- out and your Huns and Vandals will have engendered within your country by your own institutions Macauley died long before the term Fair Dealers Dealer had been coined else he probably would have used it instead of the word barbarians But the terminology makes no dif dif- dif dif- ference Shakespeare wrote in a name That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet Macauley was keen enough to foresee that here in America we would sow the seeds for our own eventual destruction by nursing vipers in our bosom Macauley died in 1859 Were he alive today he would have ample justification for saying I told you so Here he would see the sickening spectacle of the American people abandoning the right to govern themselves delegating more and more power to the Central Government and looking to that Government for their every need forsaking the spirit of initiative thrift and enterprise which was responsible for making America the great country that she is He would listen to soap-box soap orators haranguing on street corners and to demagogues over his radio advocating various and sundry pot crack-pot economies to replace the splendid splendid splendid did one we now have In certain newspapers and magazines Macauley l would read ridiculous charges against the American System of Free Competitive Enterprise accusations so false faise so utterly lacking in factual evidence to back them up that even he in spite of his skepticism would wonder what could have happened to a formerly sane people to c cause use I Ithem them to give heed to such drivel He would witness the alarming spectacle of national state and local governments piling up up debts spending and borrowing with no thought of the morrow while Americans apathetically look on making little or no protest about the profligate waste of money and resources Our Founding Fathers set up a beautiful thing here herein in this country For years we closely followed the patS patI pattern pat pat- I S tern they designed for us We became the envy of the entire entire entire en en- tire world What has happened to us Are we going to let the barbarians within our gates destroy us My fervent prayer is that before it is too taro late America will awaken to H its senses get back on the pathway that led it to unprecedented unprecedented unprecedented dented heights and which i if followed again will carry it to a s new record high in civilizations 0 |