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Freedom takes guts. Some people have them; some people do not. The twentieth century, most violent crucible yet provided for the human race, is rapidly finding out which. In that testing, the Great Republic of the West still stands supreme, battered though she is by the vicious and incessant onslaughts of her enemies and the occasional confusions and wearyings of will by her own citizens. Her freedom is not perfect, but it is a long sight better that that of most of her contemporaries.
Her liberties are not everywhere as thorough and complete as they should be but compared to the grimly laughable mockeries of liberty that go on in Russia and elsewhere, they shine like a tenfold beacon in the night. Her errors are those of the goodhearted; her ineptitudes those |
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of a contender who cannot yet quite conceive of the utter corruptions of the evil arrayed against her. She is awkward at times blundering at times, shortsighted at times, at times hesitant and uncertain and almost willfully stupid. She is, now and again, an object of ridicule to a carping world and, upon occasion, an object of scorn. BUT SHE IS FREE!
There is nothing simple or easy in this freedom, which so many people shout about and so few really understand. It is only in a few favored lands that it has ever been achieved. This land, by the grace of God and the unceasing efforts of its people, is one.
Selected from McCall's Magazine by Allen Drury
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