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Show The Last Stronghold "The United States is the last great stronghold of the profit ' and loss system of capitalistic free enterprise," writes James B. Hill, president of the Louisville Louis-ville and Nashville Railroad. "It is the last great nation of a republican re-publican or constitutional form of democracy. The years of the present century have witnessed its great industrial development unparalleled in the annals of history. his-tory. The lot of the average man under this form of government has been better than at any time under any other form. . ." All of this should be as obvious as the alphabet to anyone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the world we live in. And yet this is precisely what millions of us have apparently forgotten because be-cause of the enormous, diverse pressures of these chaotic times. We have seen scores of nations, once free, succumb to one kind or another of dictatorhip, of totalitarianism, to-talitarianism, of determinism, of super-government. And there are many of us who seem to think that it is necessary and desirable that we follow in their path. The plain truth is that the American system has given unequalled un-equalled and hitherto unknown advantages to the common man. In no other country, for example, has the automobile become a necessity, owned by almost every working family, as against a luxury possessed only by the well-to-do. In no other country have the basic conveniences of living, such as electricity, been.) made available to everyone at a cost within everyone's means. In no other country has labor, organized and unorganized, received re-ceived so much for its work, or enjoyed constantly improving living and working conditions. The United States in a great depression de-pression is actually more prosperous pros-perous than most other nations in a boom. We hear much talk about the "distribution of wealth" and it is usually buttressed by the argument ar-gument that only communism, socialism or some similar doctrine doc-trine can produce it. The fact is that there has never been a wider distribution of true wealth than in this country. Forty-five per cent of our families, comprising compris-ing 58,000,000 individuals, own 83 per cent of the nation's goods and property. Two-thirds of our families own 40.3 per cent of all private wealth. And the constant tendency is toward even wider distribution of our resources. This is the youngest of the great powers. It was founded solidly upon a philosophy of freedom. Its prosperity and the well-being of us all depend upon the maintenance of that philosophy philoso-phy against the attacks of all enemies, en-emies, within and without. Lincoln Lin-coln phrased it perfectly when he called the American ideal "the last, great hope of earth." Time has increased, not lessened, the truth of that magnificant phrase. |