The adversary presents his principles and arguments in the most approved style, and in the most winning tone, attended with the most graceful attitudes; and he is very careful to ingratiate himself into the favour of the powerful and influential of mankind, uniting himself with popular parties, floating into offices of trust and emolument by pandering to popular feeling, though it should seriously wrong and oppress the innocent.
Erroneous Ideas. The world have generally made great mistakes upon these points. They have started various projects to try to unite and cement the people together without God; but they could not do it. Fourierism, Communism—another branch of the same thing—and many other principles of the same kind have been introduced to try and cement the human family together. And then we have had peace societies, based upon the same principles; but all these things have failed, and they will fail, because, however philanthropic, humanitarian, benevolent, or cosmopolitan our ideas, it is impossible to produce a true and correct union without the Spirit of the living God, and that Spirit can only be imparted through the ordinances of the Gospel; and hence Jesus told his disciples to go and preach the Gospel to every creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and said he—“Lo, I am with you always, even to the end.” It was by this cementing, uniting spirit, that true sympathetic, fraternal relations could be introduced and enjoyed. (John Taylor, 1875, JD-18:137)
We heard Brother Taylor’s exposition of what is called Socialism this morning. What can they do? Live on each other and beg. It is a poor, unwise and very imbecile people who cannot take care of themselves. (President Brigham Young, 1870, JD-14:21)
Socialism Fails at Nauvoo. When we look abroad among the nations of the earth we see a great many evils [p. 313] in existence—evils that have existed for many centuries; in fact, they have existed from the earliest ages of which we have any account until the present time, in every nation and among all people. Our own nation is a case in point . . . . The evils that have flourished so long in what is called the Old World have been transplanted to this land . . . .
Many men have risen from time to time, who have seen and deplored these evils, and they have sought with all the wisdom and knowledge they possessed to correct them. Doubtless many of the Latter-day Saints recollect an instance of this kind at Nauvoo. After the Saints evacuated that place, a community of Socialists, called Icarians, whose leader was Mr. Cabet, came to Nauvoo and settled there. There were the houses, gardens, farms and orchards of the Latter-day Saints; the country was a healthy one when compared with what it was when first settled by the Saints. Many philanthropic men in France were interested in this experiment, and were anxious to have it succeed. They forwarded their means with considerable liberality to sustain the settlement; but despite their efforts and exertions, it fell to pieces . . . . There was a lack of cohesive power in the system; there was a lack of union, and a lack of wisdom in the management of the affair . . . . With all the advantages of which I have spoken, their attempt was a signal failure; the society was broken up and today has no existence . . . . Similar experiments, having the same ends in view, have been tried at other places at various times, but like results have attended them.(1) (George Q. Cannon, 1869, JD-13:97-8)
A Species of Robbery. There is also another political party, who desire, through the influence of legislation and coercion, to level the world.(2) To say the least, it is a species of robbery; to some it may appear an honorable [p. 314] one, but, nevertheless, it is robbery. What right has any private man to take by force the property of another? The laws of all nations would punish such a man as a thief. Would thousands of men engaged in the same business make it more honorable? Certainly not. And if a nation were to do it, would a nation’s act sanctify a wrong deed? No; the Algerine pirates, or Arabian hordes, were never considered honorable, on account of their numbers; and a nation, or nations, engaging in this would only augment the banditti, but could never sanctify the deed.
I shall not, here, enter into the various manners of obtaining wealth; but would merely state, that any unjust acquisition of it ought to be punished by law. Wealth is generally the representation of labour, industry, and talent. If one man is industrious, enterprising, diligent, careful, and saves property, and his children follow in his steps, and accumulate wealth; and another man is careless, prodigal, and lazy, and his children inherit his poverty, I cannot conceive upon what principles of justice, the children of the idle and profligate have a right to put their hands into the pockets of those who are diligent and careful, and rob them of their purse. Let this principle exist, and all energy and enterprise would be crushed. (John Taylor, 1852, Government of God, P. 23)
Wholesale Robbery and Tyranny. One of the moving forces in the civilized nations of the world which is stirring up what is called “the lower classes,” creating no small commotion in the churches, and attracting the attention of legislators, statesmen, and even the nobility and royalty, goes by the name of socialism. It is rather difficult to define. It has different phases, tenets, modes of operation and schemes to accomplish the end it claims to have in view. Some of its advocates profess to be Christians and claim that its doctrines are Christian in [p. 315] character. Most of them, however, repudiate or ignore religion altogether, and make no pretense of bringing Deity into their ideas or lives or objects.
With a few of its adherents it means anarchism—the destruction of all governments. With most of them it means the absorption of the individual into the body of the State, which is to regulate, control, and own him and all he can accumulate. The common purpose which each of its various factions has in view is the abolition of poverty and the establishment of equality in the possession and use of this world’s goods and products. It consists chiefly in theories which are not attempted to be put into practice, and which, in many respects appear to be impracticable when human nature is fairly taken into consideration . . . .
Putting aside the different wild, conflicting and unpractical notions of its street orators and clerical or secular champions, it aims at complete paternalism in government. No individual is to own anything. Everything is to belong to the state. All properties, utilities, industries, and persons are to be owned by the entire body politic, represented by the government.(3) Each individual will thus have equal claims with others for all that is needed for temporal support and intellectual education, so that nobody will lack the necessaries of life or means for general advancement. Nor will anyone own the land or other species of property, and thus there will be no rich and no poor, but all, in a certain sense, will be equal.
There are different views among Socialists as to the manner in which this radical change is to be effected, but when pressed to a declaration of their intents, the declaration is made that when a sufficient number of adherents to Socialism is obtained, holding the voting power, a government is to be set up by this majority which will exercise compulsory force to dispossess property-owners [p. 316] and take in all public and private institutions, properties, wealth, and everything that has been produced by the activities and accumulations of the ages or of modern times. In other words, there is to be a general confiscation, or, as viewed by many minds, a wholesale robbery in the name of law, and the establishment of a tyranny greater than any form of oppression ever known to the world.(4) The end in view is to justify the means employed. The levelling of all inequalities is to condone the sweeping destruction of human rights and liberties. (Charles W. Penrose, 1908, MS-70:696-7)
Agitators and Malcontents. There are among us ambitious agitators and malcontents, those unwilling, and it may be unable, to meet the press and rivalry—most dear to freemen—of free competition among a free people. Nurtured frequently under systems of government and society alien to our own, they come to us and would prescribe for our ills the potions that might have cured the disease preying upon the social and governmental system from which they came, but which are poison to the body politic of this nation. While those of these malcontents who are alien number but few from the many millions of fine, courageous citizens who have come to us from alien lands, yet these few are strong in their union of thirst for power and plunder.(5)
The ranks of these are swelled by those of our own with disappointed hopes, by our idlers, by those of us who [p. 317] wish to reap where we did not sow, by those unfortunate persons whose plans for wealth, sometimes merely for sustenance, went awry, and by those few amongst us with unholy ambitions who would be willing to bring to us even chaos itself so they might themselves get unrighteous power . . . .
Obvious Defects in Designs of Reformers. To this point of time [1935] there are certain great and obvious defects in the designs of some of these would-be reformers who seek to thrust us headlong into this whirlpool of European isms and autocracies.(6) One defect that I will mention in the thinking of the group is this: They plot somehow first to parcel out the wealth produced by our present economic system and then they intend to scourge and destroy that system; yet they visualize a world following after this parcelling out, that shall still have and enjoy all the wealth created by this system which they intend to destroy, notwithstanding that, so far as human experience goes, it is only such a system that can produce the wealth and ease they crave. Perhaps it is enough to repeat two homely sayings that come to mind: “Do not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs,” and “You cannot eat your cake and have it.” . . .
Guiding Fallacies. A serious defect in the schemes of this group is the failure of these so-called reformers to appreciate how much of what they clamor about we already have, and their ignorance that what we do not have and that would be good for a free people to have, might come in due and constitutional form. They show no adequate understanding either of the spirit or of the letter of our Constitution form of government. They give no sign of having ever carefully weighed and planned how needed reforms might come to us by constitutional methods. They show no disposition to work under the Constitution and [p. 318] within our traditions and ideals. They evidence no ability to think in terms of law; they think rather in terms of the sword. Force, not a reasoned, consenting will, is their thesis. That their own views are the ultimate good, that they only are wise, that mankind itself has no aggregate wisdom, that men must be driven to the final goal, that the people cannot be trusted and have not the wisdom to govern themselves—these seem the guiding fallacies of this group’s new reform. God himself does not coerce the will of man; why should puny fellow man think he may do what God does not?(7) (J. Reuben Clark, 2/22/35)
The Individual Versus the State. Reduced to its lowest terms, the great struggle which now rocks the whole earth more and more takes on the character of a struggle of the individual versus the State.(8) Does the individual exist for the benefit of the State, or does the State exist for the benefit of the individual? . . .
This gigantic world-wide struggle, more and more takes on the form of a war to the death. We shall do well and wisely so to face and so to enter it. And we must all take part. Indeed, we all are taking part in that struggle, whether we will or not. Upon its final issue, liberty lives or dies.
In the economic field, this earth-wide conflict has taken the form of seizing without compensation from the man who has and giving to the man who has not, of taking [p. 319] from the worker the fruits of his work, and giving to the idler who does no work. It has from its very nature become an economic, uncompensated leveling downward, not up ward, of the whole mass. This is the result in every country in which it has been tried. That this result may in one country be reached by confiscatory taxation, and in another by direct seizure, is a mere matter of method. The result is the same. In some countries outright seizure and confiscation are already openly and shamelessly practiced. All is done in the name of the State, as if it were Deity—as if the State, not God, gave all.
In the field of government, self-perpetuating governing groups are setting themselves up, either through a revolution, an overturning of the old system and the setting up of a new one, or by a perversion and prostituting of the old system into a new one. Here again the matter is merely one of method. Of what use is an election free in outward form if the government shall name the candidates.
In the new state of the world, laws and courts have lost their wonted places. Secret police, the curse of peoples, arrest, sentence, and punish as their unhampered whim, prejudice, or hate may desire. Public justice has fled the State.
Even into the field of family relationship, which, next to man’s relationship to God, is the most precious and dearest of all relationships, this modern State is thrusting its polluting hand. In some lands this new State is robbing the parents of the custody of their children on the Sabbath, it is forbidding the parents to teach and admonish the children in the ways of righteous living, it is teaching the children that officers of State, not God, shall be looked to for a guide as to standards of life . . . .
Into the field of religion, the holy of holies of the soul of man, this modern world State also enters, to dethrone God and exalt the State into God’s place. This is the arch-est treason of them all. For man robbed of God becomes a brute. This sin must be felt, not told, for words cannot measure the height and breadth of this iniquity; nor can human mind encompass the punishment of those who shall commit this sin. [p. 320]
All over the world, this new State comes into all these fields in the disguise of a protesting love and friendship for the people, whose property it means to confiscate, whose liberties it means to steal, and whose religion it means to destroy. Thus in all the history of the world has tyranny(9) come to the people. Tyranny has always been a hypocrite, a thief, a seducer. It has always been a demon dethroning the true God, for it knows that unless it can touch the souls of men, it must itself die.(10) (J. Reuben Clark, 11/16/38)
An Age Old Slavery. The danger always is in a Republic, and particularly in a happy Republic such as ours has been, that the citizenry will not be conscious of threatening dangers. Such is our case today . . . .
The whole trend today is towards the centralizing of power. A wholly alien political philosophy, brought to us by aliens, has taken root amongst us. This philosophy knows nothing of the rights of man and discards with derision the fundamentals embodied in our Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights. While the followers of this philosophy group themselves into different isms, yet in the last analysis they all come to the same end—the establishment of a socialistic, paternalistic state and the submergence [p. 321] of the individual and his rights. This concept is as old as man. All it is doing now is to dress itself up in a new suit. This concept is today imposing despotism in its worst forms upon the millions in the old world. (J. Reuben Clark, 12/15/39)
Today, as never before, the issue is clearly defined(11)—liberty and freedom of choice, or oppression and subjugation for the individual and for nations. (David O. McKay, CR- 10/40:104)
Revolutionary Methods. There are certain patriotic, economic, and social factors which have been instrumental in bringing us to where we are, and that are the common instruments of the revolutionists of other lands. Most of these will persist after the war [World War II].
First, there is the patriotic factor: We must do this to win the war! And we, not wishing to hinder the war effort, nor to be charged therewith, but desiring to aid it in every way possible, have held our tongues and bent our backs to every burden lest we should be called unpatriotic and might really hamper the war effort. It was known we would do so, and that knowledge was traded on. After the war we shall have added to the patriotic urge, the urge of serving suffering humanity, to put us behind foreign relief, continuation of lend-lease, international monetary programs, policing the world, and other like schemes and plans.
Another instrumentality that has been consciously used in other lands is the well- known inertia of a great human mass, which leads it to endure rather than to act. The conventional procedure has been known and applied of working slowly and cautiously, so as not unduly to arouse the mass, while it was brought under regulation [p. 322] after regulation to its undoing. We have already seen this at work.
Again: the inherent love of man for ease and idleness, plus his greed and cupidity have been played upon, by giving us something for nothing, letting us live without work. Many of us have come to believe the world owes us a living, whether we work or loaf.
Man’s natural mental laziness has been taken advantage of by showing us we did not need to think or plan or worry about our shelter, fuel, food, and clothing; the State would take care of us and we could forget the anxieties attending upon earning a livelihood. We have blithely walked along that easy road.
This last argument has been enforced by telling us we could and should spend all we had, make no savings, because the State would care for us. Thus thrift and frugality were killed. The father no longer need provide for the wife, son, and daughter, the State would care for that; and wife, son and daughter should thereafter look to the State, not to father, for their sustenance.
Our fears that our old age would find us penniless and in want have been played upon, and we have been persuaded that the State would care for us in our old age, we forgetting that this would make of the nation one great poorhouse. We are not through with that technique . . . .
This is State socialism;(12) it is not democracy; it is not the concept of a republic.
History is repeating itself. Esau being hungry, sold his birthright to Jacob for a mess of pottage. We are a nation of Esaus . . . .
A Diabolical Plan. I have wished to bring together and to call to your attention a number of matters, the close relationship of which it is easy to miss, and to indicate to you that, so assembled, they make a pattern which cannot be accounted for except on the theory that some [p. 323] group of minds is working out a diabolical plan(13) for the destruction of our liberties and freedom, our divinely inspired Constitution and the Government our fathers set up there under, and the wiping out of our constitutional guarantees and the free lives, the security, the happiness, and the blessings we have enjoyed thereunder . . . .
A Regimented America. We shall come into postwar America in substantial part . . . regimented for a socialized State and Government which deifies the State and makes of men its slaves. We have gone a long distance down this trail, too . . . .
Same Technique As in Ancient Egypt. The fundamentals of this technique are as old, certainly, as Joseph, who was sold into Egypt. For he, acting for Pharaoh, first purchased from the people with the taxes extorted from the people, all the grain produced by the people; then when the famine came Joseph sold this grain back to the people, in the first year for all the cash they had, which he turned over to Pharaoh; in the second year for all the flocks and herds they owned, which all went to Pharaoh; next, for all their lands, which he turned over to Pharaoh and finally, he gave them grain in exchange for their bodies and they became “servants unto Pharaoh”. The enslavement of the people was complete, Joseph saying to them, “Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh,” (Genesis 47) and thereafter Joseph moved the people as he willed, and they rented back their lands on the terms he prescribed. There is more than one lesson in Egypt’s seven years of plenty and seven years of famine.
Like Dumb Sheep. Let us look at our condition: Already we have begun to move down that trail which we follow like dumb sheep; public nurseries have been set up to tend the children while the mothers work . . . public kitchens have been established in the schools where the [p. 324] children may be fed by the State instead of going home . . . proposed laws would prevent youths from helping earn the family livelihood and governmental recreation has been provided to take the place of work; CCC Camps have been created to take youths thus State fed, clothed, and housed, from their home localities, mingling all kinds and classes together and gathering them into large camps . . . public gratuities have been scattered broadcast for doing something and for doing nothing: . . . Do you not see how far we are along the revolutionary road? No small part of our population is already debauched. (J. Reuben Clark, 1/24/45)
The Issue We Face. We now face one of the great crises of all history, a crisis that has not passed with the surrender of our enemies in Europe and that will not close with the defeat of Japan . . . .
The World crisis today, the issue which we face is this: Shall we ourselves go forward, and shall the whole Christian world proceed along the roads, Christian roads, we have followed since the modern world began, roads that have led to our Christian world achievements, in culture, economics, government, and religion, roads that converge upon the goal of eternal life; or shall we desert these roads and the concepts which, lying behind, have urged us along them and try some so-called new ways, though in reality not new ways but old ways that have been tried in the past, always, as history shows, failing.(14) (J. Reuben Clark, CN-6/16/45)
Tyranny in Disguise. Now, in the last years, we in America have gone a long distance towards the adoption of the Roman concepts, and the abuses against property rights and human freedom and liberties which are possible under that system. And let me say here and now, that in [p. 325] the whole history of the human race, from Adam until now, tyranny has never come to live with any people with a placard on his breast bearing his name. He always comes in deep disguise, sometimes proclaiming an endowment of freedom, sometimes promising help to the unfortunate and downtrodden, not by creating something for those who do not have, but by robbing those who have. But tyranny is always a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and he always ends by devouring the whole flock, saving none.
So it is today.
Alien emigres, in largest part, trained and schooled in the Civil Law, some at least acting as if emissaries of other governments, have acquired in large part by foul and devious methods, an over-topping, directing power in this country by corrupting our thought and by voting their misled adherents . . . .
They have sent billions of dollars, wrenched from us, the taxpayers, to their favorite alien governments, and they give no signs justifying a hope that this will cease;
They have sent to their favorite aliens not only supplies needed here at home, but farm and other machinery indispensable to the maintenance Of our necessary production here and largely unuseful to the countries to which they are sent;
They are charged, without convincing denial, with sending in a never-ending stream, directly to their favorite alien government, or inevitably to reach it, military supplies that they must know are being accumulated for use against us, to kill our own sons;
They have used our tax money by the hundreds of millions of dollars to spread amongst us falsifying propaganda destructive of our government;
They have used every device their fertile, evil minds could suggest, to breed and intensify class hatred, to the destruction of the fundamental freedoms and political equality guaranteed by the Constitution; . . .
They have planned to curtail freedom of speech by providing machinery for rigid censorship over public utterances; . . .
They have built up and maintained a general policy [p. 326] of looting the people generally and then misappropriating and wasting the proceeds of their loot, to the weakening not only of our constitutional institutions, but to the crippling of the war power of the nation, so that in due course it will fall easy prey to their favorite alien government; and I here say that the widespread strikes, plus the threats of making them nationwide, show how easily our whole industrial activities may be paralyzed; and if unfortunately open warfare should break out with their favorite government, you may look for strikes and sabotage and mob violence, and liquidations—murders—as well as organized resistance against our government, on a scale never before seen in the history of the world;
All the evidence indicates that some of them at least, have sought, and are now seeking, to bring chaos in this country, planning then to build out of that chaos a Soviet ized regime, with its full despotism, cruelty, and murder, so helping to Communize the world, to the destruction of everything we hold dear and sacred in government, in family life, and in religion.
It will not do to say that all these are exercises of the war powers; for the principle behind each invasion of our rights was put in operation before we declared war, and has been continued, sometimes intensified, since the war ended. (J. Reuben Clark, CN- 9/21/46)
Who Are The Reactionaries? In this day principles and practices and institutions and beliefs, grown venerable with age, are cast aside with contemptuous abandon, often for no other reason than that they are old. We have even invented some names for those who refuse to throw overboard the principles by which they have lived and flourished. In the language of the day, no doubt, James and Paul would be called reactionaries, anti- liberals, non-progressives.
It would be easily demonstrable that most of the supposedly new and progressive offerings of the hour are in fact age-old and have been tried and found delusive and been thrown into the discard in the far-distant past. Their advocates so far from pointing the way to progress are the real reactionaries, leading back to discredited failures of [p. 327] long ago. I have a notion that the reactionary or progressive quality of a doctrine should be determined by the soundness or lack of soundness of the principle it embodies and not by its age. Take for instance the Ten Commandments. (Albert E. Bowen, CR-10/48:85)
America Faces Freedom or Slavery Issue. The plain and simple issue now facing us in America is freedom or slavery . . . . Our real enemies are communism and its running mate, socialism. . . .(15) Nor forget that while enslavement to an individual may on occasion be eased by the human instincts of mercy and love, yet these feelings are unknown to a soulless state . . . .
Unfortunately, one thing seems sure, we shall not get out of our present difficulties without trouble, serious trouble. Indeed, it may well be that our government and its free institutions will not be preserved except at the price of life and blood That is the record of freedom’s contest with communism and socialism in other lands . . . .
The paths we are following, if we move forward thereon, will inevitably lead us to socialism or communism, and these two are as like as two peas in a pod in their ultimate effect upon our liberties . . . .
We may first observe that communism and socialism—which we shall hereafter group together and dub Statism
live with Christianity, nor with any religion that postulates a Creator such as the Declaration of Independence recognizes. The slaves of Statism must know no power, no authority, no source of blessing, no God, but the State. The State must be supreme in everything . . . .
This country faces ahead enough trouble to bring us to our knees in humble, honest prayer to God for the help which he alone can give, to save us . . . .
And do not think that all these usurpations, intimidations, and impositions are being done to us through [p. 328] inadvertence or mistake; the whole course is deliberately planned and carried out; its purpose is to destroy the Constitution and our constitutional government; then to bring chaos, out of which the new Statism, with its slavery, is to arise, with a cruel, relentless, selfish, ambitious crew in the saddle, riding hard with whip and spur, a red-shrouded band of night riders for despotism . . . .
If we do not vigorously fight for our liberties, we shall go clear through to the end of the road and become another Russia, or worse . . . .
The story is told that in the late afternoon at the battle of Marengo, Desaix reached the field after a forced march. The desperate situation was explained to him. Napoleon asked him what he thought of it. His reply was: “This battle is completely lost; but it is only four o’clock; we have still time to gain one today.” Bonaparte ordered him to join in an advance on their right wing. The advance was made; the new battle was won. Desaix died that day, shot through the heart.
We have largely lost the conflict so far waged. But there is time to win the final victory, if we sense our danger, and fight. Let us too, advance on the right wing. God give us strength to preserve our liberties . . . .
False New Deal Philosophy. Recently a believer in the new deal, while repudiating communism and socialism, yet sought to justify our traveling along the road that inevitably leads thereto, the road we are now on, by invoking the thesis propounded by President Roosevelt, namely, that, in order to avoid trouble, we must travel along this road and yield principle after principle as their abandonment is demanded. This plan is the equivalent of giving an unarmed robber, who has declared his intention of looting you, first a bludgeon and then a gun and then inviting him into your home in order to avoid trouble. Better take your trouble to begin with before he has the gun, the bludgeon, and is in your home, than after he is fully armed and inside. There will be less bloodshed in the end. No more fallacious policy, fatal to freedom, was ever inaugurated than this. (J. Reuben Clark, CN-9/25/49)
Office-Hungry Politicians. Now, in view of the [p. 329] eminent leadership position American industry has attained in the world, how is it that in recent years moves have been made that ultimately will practically destroy our free- enterprise system and end in socialism or statism(16) or a welfare state (take your choice of terms)moves tending to create the feeling that the government offers the best social security available in this country, etc? . . .
Many winds of doctrine—social, economic, political—are blowing among the people. Individuals, ambitious for position and power, employing all kinds of propaganda, are and will continue to be busy among the people to win their support. Such things are not new. They have long existed and have been particularly prominent in periods of great distress and chaos. And they are especially dangerous in countries ruled by democratic forms of government.
Dangers ominously threaten in this great country of ours. Our government had one great test—the Civil War of the sixties. It will have other tests. But it will triumph so long as the people remain true to their heritage and maintain the ideals of liberty and justice set up by the fathers of our country. (Joseph F. Merrill, CR-4/37:41-2)
As I see it, the leaders of these moves are in general office-hungry politicians, longing for the emoluments, influence, and power of public office. These candidates for office have courted, and are courting, the support of selfish, ambitious, and powerful leaders of labor unions, as well as the ne’er-do-well elements in our population. Through the abundant and widespread use of misleading propaganda in which they have indulged and do indulge, the minds of the public in great measure have become confused and multitudes won over. Compare, if you please, half-century-old platforms of political parties with those that go out today under the same party names. (Joseph F. Merrill, CR- 4/50:61-62) [p. 330]
The Miracle of West Germany. The miracle of West Germany has been achieved because German leaders put their faith in freedom and competitive enterprise and turned down the socialistic, government controlled and government-directed programs proposed by certain U. S. economists at the end of World War II—economists still actively helping to formulate U.S. economic policy.
The results speak for themselves. The contrast between the East and West—free enterprise and Communist socialism—is more than Mr. Khrushchev can take. He is determined to board up the glaring Berlin show window of free competitive enterprise operated by free men.
Socialistic-communistic policies and programs are today a dangerous threat to the freedom and peace of all the world. Are we alert to this danger? (Ezra Taft Benson, CN- 9/2/61)
A Red Carpet for Communism. It is high time we realized the dangerous threat to America of creeping socialism as the ruthless comrade to atheistic communism.
It is high time that we recognize creeping socialism for what it really is—a Red Carpet providing a royal road to communism.
A few months before coming to the United States Khrushchev is reported to have said:
We cannot expect the Americans to jump from capitalism to communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving Americans small doses of socialism, until they suddenly awake to find they have communism . . . .
I say again, communism is freedom’s most dangerous enemy; the threat of communism in America is real, and I believe in all seriousness that socialism paves the way for communism. Truly, in our land, our choice land of America, we are laying the Red Carpet, which permits creeping socialism to be America’s “royal road” to communism.(17) (Ezra Taft Benson, 1962, The Red Carpet, P. 65-83) [p. 331]
Let us never forget that today we are in the biggest battle ever staged. Our opponent is socialism—the welfare state(18)—and the penalty of failure is enslavement. We must keep strong spiritually, morally, and economically as individuals, families, communities, and as a nation. Only in this course is safety. (Ezra Taft Benson, BYU, 2/28/62)
The New Frontier To Socialism. We have launched a political program known as the “New Frontier.” It is all apparent that the objectives of this “New Frontier” are more power for government, greater spending of public funds, higher government indebtedness, less freedom for the individual and state and local governments. It is headed for more socialism in America—more spreading of the “Red Carpet.” . . .
I do not fear the small, hard corps of subversives here in America so much as I do those who do not see the danger to freedom that is inherent in more and more centralization of power in government—and I fear especially those who do see the trend and do not care. (Ezra Taft Benson, 1962, The Red Carpet, P. 308, 159)
Socialism By “Due Process of Law.”(19) Of course, it immediately becomes apparent that if certain people wanted to seize control of private property, if they wanted to nationalize the land, if they wanted to have the government [p. 332] take over all the industries, the schools, the transportation complex and communications network, the way to do it would be by “due process of law.” Therefore, certain people have set out to do this very thing.
Is this possible? It is indeed, and every American should know it. As the Marxist- Socialists declared over seventy years ago: “Convert the electorate and capture the County Councils.” More recently Khrushchev has emphasized the same thing. In 1956 he said:
In this connection the question arises of whether it is possible to go over to socialism by using parliamentary means . . . . The forces of socialism and democracy have grown immeasurable through the world, and capitalism has become much weaker . . . . In these circumstances the working class, by rallying around itself the toiling peasantry, the intelligentsia, all patriotic forces . . . is in a position to defeat the reactionary forces opposed to the popular interest, to capture a stable majority in parliament, and transform the latter from an organ of bourgeois democracy into a genuine instrument of the people’s will . . . . (House Committee on Un-American Activities, Facts on Communism, Vol. 1, p. 114-5)
What Khrushchev is talking about is what he calls “peaceful victory of socialism,” or seizing the natural and human resources of the earth, “by due process of law.”
He is not alone in this ambition. In this project he is paralleling the position of another branch of Marxism which might be called the Social Democrats since this is the name they took in Russia and most of Europe. Lenin himself helped to organize the Social Democratic Party in Russia but in 1903 he set up his own branch of the party and called them Bolsheviks which became the vanguard of revolutionary violence in the party.
But notice what happened in Russia. It was the Social Democrats, or the ones who wanted to seize power “by due process of law” who organized the original soviets, who concentrated the power over the industrial workers into a few hands, who overthrew the Tsar, and who set up conditions in Russia from March to October, 1917, which made it possible for the Communists or Bolsheviks to move in with force and violence and take over Russia in November, 1917. Notice that the Social Democrats did their organizing in the name of the welfare of the people. After they had provided the basic concentration of power, the [p. 333] forces of Lenin seized control and the people found themselves under the harsh cruelty of a Communist dictatorship.
This is a most important lesson for all of us to learn, namely, that the Communists use the Socialists to pave the way for them wherever possible. This is why Communists and Socialists are often found supporting each other, collaborating together and fighting for the same goals . . . .(20)
Now obviously, the worst thing that can happen to a Socialist is to have himself openly identified with the work of the Communists who are generally feared and despised. The Socialists know they cannot seize property and power by “due process of law” unless they are politically popular, therefore, they try desperately to avoid the taint of the Communists and present their program so that it appears “moral,” “democratic,” “peaceful,” and so “gradual” that the people will not resist it.
These are the exact words used by the Social Democrats in England in 1889 when they were preparing to lay the foundation for the seizure of power which finally took place after World War I and again after World War II. They prepared a book called “Fabian Essays on Socialism.” In the preface they said the book was being written by seven members of the executive council of the Fabian Society. They then said, “The writers are all Social Democrats.” Nevertheless, they adopted the name of “Fabians” after the Roman General, Fabius who won his battles by capturing or defeating the enemy a few at a time. This is what the Social Democrats call “gradualism.” It is their intention to use this method in conquering their enemies which in this case happens to be free men.
Here is what these Fabians or Social Democrats said they were going to do:
With reference to private property they said: “. . . private property in land and capital will inevitably go the [p. 334] way of feudalism which it superseded.”
The Social Democrats also said they were going to work for “the ultimate and gradual extinction of the (property-owning) class.”
They said they were going to nationalize or collectivize the land. They described how they would set up collectivized farms. They would organize communes in each locality. They would get clothes from a community store, eat at a community kitchen. They would nationalize the major industries and develop industrial communes for the smaller industries.
At this point some of you may wonder whether I am talking about Communism in Russia rather than the Social Democrats in England. But I have mentioned these things so that you can see that in their final form the two are identical.
The Fabians even recognize the problem of compulsory labor which might be necessary under their system. In fact, within one year after the British Fabians had seized power and socialized the major industries following World War II, they found it necessary to impose controlled or compulsory labor management on the workers. But compulsion was nothing new in the thinking of Social Democrats. One of their original founders emphasized this when he said:
I also made it quite clear that under Socialism you would not be allowed to be poor. You would be forcibly fed, clothed, lodged, taught and employed whether you liked it or not. If it were discovered that you had not character and industry enough to be worth all this trouble, you might possibly be executed in a kindly manner; but whilst you were permitted to live you would have to live well. (George B. Shaw, Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism and Capitalism, p. 470.)
The Social Democrats even described the serf-like existence of the workers under their program. They pointed out that “the perfect fitting development of each individual is not necessarily the utmost and highest cultivation of his own personality, but the filling, in the best possible way, of his humble function in the great social machine.” (Fabian Essays on Socialism, p. 79.)
One final observation concerning the Socialist plan [p. 335] to seize power by “due process of law.” During the gradual seizure of land and property there will still be some private industry operating. They describe how they will gradually smother and destroy it. Here is what they say about this stage of their take-over:
The private capitalist, however, will still be in business, producing and distributing on his own account in competition with the communal organization, which at present will have occupied only part of the industrial field. But . . . these private enterprises will be carried on under circumstances of ever-increasing difficulty.
They then describe how the government-owned industries, operating with government credit behind them, will begin to choke off private enterprise. They say, “Afterwhile the private producers will disappear, not because there will be any law against individualist production, but because they will not pay.”(21) (Ibid., p. 195)
All of this may begin to sound familiar to many American businessmen who have been watching similar influences of creeping socialism gradually using government regulations or government ownership to destroy the basic framework of economic freedom and private production in our own country.
We must ever keep in mind that collectivized socialism is part of the communist strategy. Communism is fundamentally socialism. We will never win our fight against communism by making concessions to socialism. Communism and socialism, closely related, must be defeated on principle . . . .
Fabianism In America. Many people have wondered [p. 336] if the Marxist concepts of the Fabian Social Democrats have deeply penetrated the United States.(22) In truth they have. British Social Democrats came to the United States in 1888 for a long visit to train Fabian groups in several of the leading universities. Eventually their followers were organized into the Inter-collegiate Socialist Society in 1905. By 1916 this organization was becoming increasingly influential and its members were already climbing into the higher echelons of the government. After World War I the Society changed its name to the League for Industrial Democracy and continued to plant its most brilliant personalities in government, education, communications and policy making bodies. There they remain today, occupying some of the highest offices in the land. Their records will show that they have consistently sponsored the basic ideas of the Social Democrats of Europe. Some of them have been exposed as not only being sympathetic, and collaborating with their fellow Marxists of the USSR, but actually joining them.
This, then, brings me to my final point, namely, that the internal threat to the American way of life is in the secret alliance which exists between the more advanced Social Democrats and the hard-core Communist conspiracy. Occasionally this sympathetic alliance breaks out into the open, but most of the time it is maintained in quiet secrecy. If you should wonder why Socialists in this and other countries have often played into the hands of world Communism you might consider these words from the top British Socialist, G. D. H. Cole who wrote the following words during World War II:
I have never allowed my dislike of much that Stalin has done to blind me to the fact that the USSR remains fundamentally Socialist, or that the Soviet form of revolution and of government may be the only one that is capable of sweeping clean the stables of Eastern and Southern [p. 337] Europe, or of solving the basic economic problems of the unhappy peasants of these impoverished States . . . . I am ready to go further. I would much sooner the Soviet Union, even with its policy unchanged, become dominant over all Europe, including Great Britain, than see an attempt to restore the pre-war states to their futile and uncreative independence and their petty economic nationalism under capitalistic domination. Much better be ruled by Stalin than by the restrictive and monopolistic cliques which dominate Western capitalism.
Mr. Cole concludes by saying,
For it would be much better to live within a system, however barbaric in some of its features, that has in it some creative force making for the liberation of mankind from class-oppression and primary poverty than to be thrust back under the dead hand of decaying capitalism utterly incapable of fresh, creative effort. (G. D. H. Cole, Europe, Russia and the Future, pp. 8-9)
It would appear to me that when a mind has been trained to hold such bitterness against capitalism, to believe in the illusions of Communism, it is no wonder that some of this same mentality have used their influence in scientific circles, in embassies and in governmental positions to betray the interests of their own countries and collaborate with what has turned out to be the most formidable enemy free men have ever faced. (Ezra Taft Benson, CN-12/23/61)
America Faces Great Crisis. We must not let complacency blind our eyes to the real dangers threatening to destroy us. Judging from the written and expressed opinion of many of our leaders, our government is facing the greatest crisis in its history.
Let me give you some of the latest: General Albert C. Wedemeyer said during a recent visit to Utah: “As intelligent and patriotic Americans you must recognize that our free society faces perplexities and perils, vaster in scope and more challenging than ever before . . . .”
Mr. W. C. Mullendore, President of the Southern California Edison Company . . . offers this warning:
Over far too long a period now, we, the people of the United States of America, have been squandering our heritage and blindly following the old, treacherous, but often beguiling, ways which lead backward and downward from the unfrequented heights of liberty to the lowlands of tyranny [p. 338] and despair where the great bulk of mankind has lived for practically the whole of human history . . . .
Thus beguiled and misled, during the first half of the Twentieth Century, we have traveled far into the soul-destroying land of Socialism, and made strange alliances through which we have become involved in almost continuous hot and cold wars over the whole earth. In this retreat from freedom, the voices of protesting citizens have been drowned by raucous shouts of intolerance and abuse from those who led the retreat and their millions of gullible dupes, who are marching merrily to their doom, carrying banners on which are emblazoned such intriguing and misapplied labels as “social justice,” “equality,” “reform,” “patriotism,” and “social welfare” . . . .
Intoxicated with pride in our achievement, immersed in the interesting problems still unsolved, we have left unguarded the gates through which are pouring destructive hordes and forces of a “new invasion of barbarism” . . . .
Paralleling the dangers just enumerated, the nation is threatened with a disintegrating influence of moral turpitude. Honesty seems to be outmoded. The stability of the family life, I am sorry to say is crumbling. Loyalty and patriotism have lost their ardor. Crime and lawlessness, particularly among young people, are increasing alarmingly. (President David O. McKay, CN-3/12/52)
Real Dangers Ahead- The Hour Is Late. The hour is very late indeed, on the time table of national survival. As Ernst Tillich stated in his testimony as an expert witness before the House Committee on Un-American Activities several years ago: “On the clock of survival the time is now five minutes before midnight. We have but this brief interval to choose between survival or extinction.”
The events which have taken place since Mr. Tillich testified have fully supported this grave warning. We have been plunging headlong down the primrose path toward the inevitable destruction of our great country. It is quite true that while the Socialist Communist Conspiracy, of itself, does not have, as yet, the power necessary to do the job, it is nevertheless receiving vital aid and comfort from the Fabian Socialists, fellow travelers, dupes and liberals, to such a degree that the communists are jubilant at the course of events . . . .
There are real dangers ahead. Why do I have [p. 339] anxiety and fear for the future? I fear for the future when I realize that for some thirty years our once-free institutions, political, economic, educational and social, have been drifting into the hands of those who favor the welfare State, and who would
centralize all power in the hands of the political apparatus in Washington. This enhancement of political power at the expense of individual rights, so often disguised as “democracy” or “freedom” or “civil rights,” is “socialism,” no matter what name tag it bears.(23)
Here we should recall the warning of the late Dean Inge: “History seems to show that the powers of evil have won their greatest triumphs by capturing the organizations which were formed to defeat them, and that when the devil has thus changed the contents of the bottles, he never alters the labels. The fort may have been captured by the enemy, but it still flies the flag of its defenders.” (Admiral Ben Moreell, November 22, 1963)
I fear for the future when I see an affluent but complacent citizenry paying little or no attention to these and many other socialistic trends in America. Dr. V. Orval Watts, noted political economist, has described this socialist system which I fear . . . . Here are his words:
Socialism . . . is the theory and practice of coercive collectivism. It is the evil fruit of greed for other men’s possessions and greed for control over other men’s labor. This greed for goods and power is as old as man and as widespread as the human race. It goes by many names, disguised in many forms, as men think up many excuses for robbing and ruling their fellows.
Socialist theory is a modern excuse, an elaborate rationalization for this greed and for the organized looting and despotism it seeks to achieve. But its materialism, its collectivist point of view, its reliance on violence and coercion, even most of its economics, are as old and as common as sin.
It holds out to men the hope that they may reap where they have not sown. It teaches that man is the creature of [p. 340] his environment, and that he may be happy and good if he gets enough wealth, regardless of how or where. All that is needed, says the Socialist Tempter, is to bow down and worship the Socialist State, turning over to it authority and power to take wealth where it finds it and to direct labor as it wills. Just a little class hatred, a little lying propaganda, a little violence on the picket lines, a little suppression of adverse critics, and a few generations of compulsory education in Socialistic thought, then surely we shall see the bright new day of equality, peace, brotherhood, and freedom! So says the Socialist.
In 1878, the great Southern statesman, Benjamin Hill of Georgia, warned us of these dangers on the floor of the United States Senate, in these prophetic words:
I dread nothing so much as the exercise of ungranted and doubtful powers by this Government. It is, in my opinion, the danger of dangers to the future of this country. Let us be sure that we keep it always within its limits.
If this great, ambitious, ever-growing corporation becomes aggressive, who shall check it? If it becomes wayward, who shall control it? If it becomes unjust, who shall trust it? As sentinels of the country’s watchtower, I beseech you to watch and guard with sleepless dread that corporation which can make all property and rights, all states and people, and all liberty and hope, its playthings in an hour, and its victims forever.(24)
Admiral Ben Moreell, who has spoken here, has wisely declared:
We do not place our trust in government mechanisms, formulas, affirmations or men. Our faith is in God and in the capacity of free men and women to govern themselves. There is a proper function for government in a free society. But that function does not include the power to order citizens [p. 341] how to live their lives. Our government was not designed to administer the affairs of men; it was devised to administer justice among men, who would administer their own affairs.(25)
That great and wise American, Thomas Jefferson, warned us of the danger of conferring unwarranted power upon our government administrators in these sobering words:
It would be a dangerous delusion were a confidence in the men of our choice to silence our fears for the safety of our rights: that confidence is everywhere the parent of despotism—free government is founded in jealousy, and not in confidence; it is jealousy and not confidence which prescribes limited constitutions; to bind down those whom we are obliged to trust with power; that our Constitution has accordingly fixed the limits to which, and no further, our confidence may go; . . . In questions of power, then, let not more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.(26) [Works 9:470-1]
(Ezra Taft Benson, BYU, 12/10/63)
1. “Most of the major ills of the world have been caused by well-meaning people who ignored the principle of individual freedom, except as applied to themselves, and who were obsessed with fanatical zeal to improve the lot of mankind-in-the-mass through some pet formula of their own . . . . The harm done by ordinary criminals, murderers, gangsters, and thieves is negligible in comparison with the agony inflicted upon human beings by the professional “do-gooders” who attempt to set themselves up as gods on earth and who would ruthlessly force their views on all others—with the abiding assurance that the end justifies the means.” (Henry Grady Weaver, The Mainspring of Human Progress, 2. “Persons who call themselves Marxists or Communists are not the only ones who support social leveling by compulsion. This process is implicit in nazism, fascism, Fabianim, socialism, state interventionism, the planned economy, the welfare state, and new and fair dealism. Indeed, many persons who call themselves conservatives or free enterprisers are unwitting sponsors of this process—at least, in part. All who advocate subsidies for special groups . . . stand as daily, living testimonies to this fact. The Marxian ideal, whether understood or not, is being advocated in numerous ways by vast numbers of adult Americans!” (Leonard E. Read, Essays On Liberty 3. “Socialism is the denial of private property—nothing else. It is not the repression of religion, nor the regulation of the economy, nor the suppression of thought through control of media of expression, nor the management of life by political means. All such things may follow, from the violation of the right of the individual to keep and enjoy the fruits of his labors. To be more exact, socialism is the forcible transference of control of property from the producer to the political establishment. (Force is necessary because the individual is so constituted that he will not voluntarily give up his property.)” (Frank Chodorov, The Freeman, Jan., 1956, P. 7-8)
4. “The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain; and it matters not whether his master is a single person or a society. If, without option, he has to labour for the society, and receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave to the society. Socialistic arrangements necessitate an enslavement of this kind; and towards such an enslavement many recent measures . . . are carrying us.” (Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus The State, p. 42-43)
5. “Most people don’t realize that the Kremlin has already invaded America. The reason most Americans are not conscious of this invasion is due to the fact that it has been going on gradually for 39 years. The Soviet leaders have moved entire divisions of their political army into our country unnoticed by all except a few security-minded citizens. These Red forces are a political army which is civilian in appearance and walk the streets of America indistinguishable from the rest of the population. Their weapons of war consist of infiltration into government, education, finance, and communication by subversion, disruption, poisonous propaganda, and espionage. They are largely an invisible enemy acting behind fronts and, therefore difficult to pinpoint. Operating as a disciplined and dedicated force they insinuate themselves into various sensitive and key areas of our society.” (Archibald Roosevelt, quoted by House of Representative Communist Political Subversion. P. 4)
6. “The preservation and expansion of freedom are today threatened from two directions. The one threat is obvious and clear. It is the external threat coming from the evil men in the Kremlin who promise to bury us. The other threat is far more subtle. It is the internal threat coming from men of good intentions and good will who wish to reform us. Impatient with the slowness of persuasion and example to achieve the great social changes they envision, they are anxious to use the power of the state to achieve their ends and confident of their ability to do so . . . . Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” (Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, P. 201)
7. “The statesman who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capital would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted, not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.” (Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, IV, 2)
8. “As an abstraction, the State is to me only All-of-us. In practice—that is, when it exercises will or adopts a line of action—it is only a little group of men chosen in a very haphazard way by the majority of us to perform certain services for all of us. The majority do not go about their selection very rationally, and they are almost always disappointed by the results of their own operation. Hence ‘the State’, instead of offering resources of wisdom, right reason, and pure moral sense beyond what the average of us possess, generally offers much less of all those things. Furthermore, it often turns out in practice that ‘the State’ is not even the known and accredited servants of the State, but, as it has been well said, is only some obscure clerk, hidden in the recesses of a Government bureau, into whose power the chance has fallen for the moment to pull one of the stops which control the Government machine . . . . In our day it often happens that “the State’ is a little functionary on whom a big functionary is forced to depend” (William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe To Each Other, P. 9-10)
9. “In the beginning, we do not see many overt acts of tyranny . . . . In the beginning, tyranny is subtle, its actions explained as necessary steps against enemies of the public good, its iron fist hidden in a velvet glove, its death’s-head grin masked as a smile of paternal beneficence. By the time the naked power of the police state is unsheathed and brandished boldly for all to see and cringe before, it is often too late for an intimidated populace to take action.” (The Dan Smoot Report, 9/16/63)
10. “What is statism? It has many names: Fabianism, nazism, fascism, communism, socialism, state-interventionism, the welfare state, the planned economy, and all sorts of “deals”—new, fair, and otherwise. These labels, rather careless generalizations, have a common characteristic that identifies each and every one as essentially the same thing: the use of government—the organized police force—as the means to direct the creative activities of the people. 11. “The main issue in present-day political struggles is whether society should be organized on the basis of private ownership of the means of production (capitalism, the market system) or on the basis of public control of the means of production (socialism, communism, planned economy). Capitalism means free enterprise, sovereignty of the consumers in economic matters, and sovereignty of the voters in political matters. Socialism means full government control of every sphere of the individual’s life and the unrestricted supremacy of the government in its capacity as central board of production management. There is no compromise possible between these two systems. Contrary to a popular fallacy there is no middle way, no third system possible as a pattern of a permanent social order. The citizens must choose between capitalism and socialism or, as many Americans say, between the American and the Russian way of life.” (Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy, P. 10)
12. “I would like to suggest to you that the extent to which government in America has departed from the original design of inhibiting the destructive actions of man and invoking a common justice; the extent to which government has invaded the productive and creative areas; the extent to which the government in this country has assumed the responsibility for the security, welfare, and prosperity of our people is a measure of the extent to which socialism and communism have developed here in this land of ours.” (Leonard E. Read, The Essence of Americanism, 13. “We cannot absolutely know that all these adaptations are the result of preconcert, but when we see a lot of framed timbers gotten out at different times and places by different workmen and we see these timbers joined together, and see they exactly make the frame of a house, all tenons and mortices exactly fitting . . . not omitting even the scaffolding . . . in such a case we find it impossible not to believe that the different workmen all understood one another from the beginning, and all worked upon a common plan drawn up before the first blow was struck.” (Abraham Lincoln, 1858, quoted in Manion Forum No. 443)
14. “Why should an increase in technology require a change in the Constitution, or in our morality or values? What moral or political change does the entrance of a jet force us to adopt? 15. “All socialism involves slavery. What is essential to the idea of a slave? We pri marily think of him as one who is owned by another. To be more than nominal, however, the ownership must be shown by control of the slave’s actions—a control which is habitually for the benefit of the controller. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy another’s desires . . . . The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain; and it matters not whether his master is a single person or a society.” (Herbert Spencer, The Man Versus The State, P. 41-2)
16. “‘Statism’ is a comparatively new word for an institution that is as old as the human race. It appears on every page of recorded history but in disguises and with formal variations that are seldom if ever repeated. Like the constantly changing surface of the essentially changeless sea, Statism may be brutal or benevolent, cruel or compassionate, in turn or in combination. But regardless of its transient moods, Statism always and everywhere is the embodiment of tyrannical, capricious and unlimited government whose subjects are legally powerless to resist its decrees.” (Clarence Manion, The Key To Peace, P. 86)
17. “The greatest danger does not come alone from the Communist parties, but also from all these other groups who in effect become their allies, even though they often seem to oppose communism at least superficially. It is impressive to see the way the Communists are able to inveigle these socialists, nationalists and other people into working with them. As a matter of fact, the commies frequently hide and camouflage the development of the real Communist Party by the Communists themselves joining other parties.” (Ambassador Spruille Braden, Keynes At Harvard, P. 4)
18. “There can be no question but that some, even in high places in our Government are not aware of the interrelation between communism and socialism, and, incidentally, socialism is nothing more or less than the welfare state . . . . 19. “It is upon the law that socialism itself relies. Socialists desire to practice legal plunder, not illegal plunder. Socialists, like all other monopolists, desire to make the law their own weapon. And when once the law is on the side of socialism, how can it be used against socialism? For when plunder is abetted by the law, it does not fear your courts, your gendarmes, and your prisons. Rather, it may call upon them for help.” (Frederic Bastiat, The Law, 20. In the December 1961 issue of Political Affairs, a communist publication, com munist conspirators in our nation were told: “’There is no dividing line between socialism and communism. They are not two different types of society but only two phases of one and the same social formation which differ from each other only in degree of maturity. The transition from socialism to communism is therefore a gradual process effected without friction and class struggle.” (Page 39)
21. “Stalin advised the late William Foster that the American people would never accept socialism or communism and that the only hope of imposing a Red regime in the United States was ‘a consistent but gradual increase in local and federal public ownership projects’. Publicly-owned operations, he pointed out, paid little if any taxes and in the end ‘ . . . result in a final acceptance of complete government ownership and operation.’ That, he explained, is communism. 22. “In spite of Fabian socialists’ claims that they are non-communist, they have been performing a yeoman service for the Kremlin throughout the years. Indoctrination of undergraduates in socialism usually proceeded in three phases. First, the socialist lecturers conditioned the young minds to hate capitalism as an outmoded and cruel system; the second phase was to despise and distrust individual capitalists as exploiters and reactionaries who oppose social improvements; and thirdly, the fledgling radical is hooked by clever ‘scientific examples’ and formulae which prove to him that the present social order is predestined to collapse and socialism is foreordained to take its place.” (Veritas Foundation, Keynes At Harvard, P. 13)
23. “The proposed extension of federal executive and administrative control over business, industry, individual citizens and the states by the package of legislation called ‘The Civil Rights Act . . . ’ exceeds the sum total of all such extensions by all decisions of the Supreme Court and all Acts of Congress from 1787 to June 19, 1963. . . . Never in the history of nations governed by elected officials has the head of any State demanded naked untrammeled power such as is embodied in this Act, except when such state was upon the verge of becoming a dictatorship. If it is enacted the checks and balances set up by the Constitution of the United States will be destroyed.” (John C. Satterfield, Unlimited Federal Control of Individuals, Businesses And The States, P. 1)
24. “In a much quoted passage in his inaugural address, President Kennedy said, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.’ It is a striking sign of the temper of our times that the controversy about this passage centered on its origin and not on its content. Neither half of the statement expresses a relation between the citizen and his government that is worthy of the ideals of free men in a free society . . . . The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country. He will ask rather ‘What can I and my compatriots do through government’ to help us discharge our individual responsibilities, to achieve our several goals and purposes, and above all, to protect our freedom? And he will accompany this question with another: How can we keep the government we create from becoming a Frankenstein that will destroy the very freedom we establish it to protect? Freedom is a rare and delicate plant. Our minds tell us, and history confirms, that the great threat to freedom is the concentration of power.” (Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom, P. 1-2)
25. “Any product or service that has (or can have) a price in the market should not be a function of government. For example, the decision of the Dallas jury to execute Ruby is not a market operation; that is, it has no price that one can pay to get whatever type decision one wishes. But a bushel of wheat and a kilowatt hour of electricity do (or can) have market prices. Therefore, there is no logical reason for government (the police force) to enter directly into these market operations.” (Dean Russell, Letter to Compiler, March 19, 1964)
26. “Whenever government is doing anything that is forbidden to the citizens, that function is illegitimate, according to our theory of government. For example, our gov ernment protects us against murderers and robbers. That is a legitimate function of government, on two counts. First, you can continue to protect yourself against murderers and robbers, even though the government is doing it at’ the same time. Second, since you have the right as an individual, you also have the right to delegate it to another person or organization. Our government is founded squarely on this ‘theory of delegation’. One cannot delegate what he doesn’t have. No person has a right to determine my religion; therefore he can’t delegate it. That’s why it would be illegitimate for government to interfere in my religion. Also, no person has a right to say how my children must be educated. Since no person has that moral right, no person can morally and logically delegate it. Therefore, if government is determining what my children must learn (it is!), that is clearly an illegitimate function of government and is contrary to the theory on which it is founded. And so on.” (Dean Russell, Ibid). [p. 342]
“A careful examination of these so-called progressive ideologies will reveal that their philosophical justification rests on this use of the legal force of government as an alleged means of doing good. They are founded on and exist by coercion, this alone and nothing else. Any difference in any of them has to do with organization details as to how the coercion shall be administered . . . .
“Statism begins at precisely the point where the defensive function is turned to coercive activity of a positive nature. Statism begins, for instance, when the state leaves off protecting one’s income and begins taking one’s income for others. It begins when the state traffics in coercive or initiated force instead of sticking to defensive or repellent force.
“Statism is coercion. Coercion (initiated force) is evil in every instance of its application. There are no exceptions.” (Leonard Read, Essays On Liberty 2:
“There is no necessity whatever for morality or political philosophy to change every time technology improves. The fundamental relations of men—their need to mix their labor with resources in order to produce consumer goods, their desire for sociability, their need for private property, to mention but a few—are always the same, whatever the era of history. Jesus’ teachings were not applicable just to the ox-cart age of first-century Palestine; neither were the Ten Commandments somehow ‘outmoded’ by the invention of the pulley.” (Murray N. Rothbard, Cliches of Socialism, No. 7)
“Not only is the welfare state no defense against communism, but there is a serious question as to whether, in practical effect, the welfare state is even an alternative to communism. Both, in essence, are founded on the identical theories of state socialism and are equally antagonistic to the concept of private property. Under communism all property is vested in the state; under the welfare state, the outward vestiges or title to property remains in the individual, but all meaningful attributes of property are exercised by the state through regulation, control, and taxation. Whatever differences might exist are differences in form, rather than substance. The basic premise of both communism and welfare statism is that individual responsibility and initiative are unreliable for accomplishment of the goal for society which both profess, and their goal is conceived solely in terms of materialistic values. Welfare statism must, therefore, be equated with communism in its mistrust of individual liberty and reliance on state control.” (Senator Strom Thurmond, Congressional Record, 7/26/61)
“‘Every new local or federal public ownership project,’ said Stalin, ‘is an added nail in the coffin that will finally contain capitalism. The tax burden will become greater every year for the American people, and each government-owned operation will throw an added burden on the private taxpayers. It is obvious that the camel’s back of capitalism will finally break under an unbearable burden.’ Stalin told Foster ‘ . . . that the average left-wing American liberal, who would be insulted at being called a Socialist or a Communist, would enthusiastically use all of his influence to bring about more and more public ownership operations in the field of natural resources, transportation and other commercial lines. That is the way we must enlist the left-wing liberals in all walks of life, not only in the United States, but in all Latin America as well.” (Howard E. Kershner, Christian Economics, 4/17/62)
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