Even the specific guarantees of freedom that we have incorporated into our organic law do not get themselves enforced with the simple directness that should mark real faith in them. Liberty of speech, of press, of assemblage, and of domiciliary privacy, as liberty was understood and intended by the framers of our scheme of self-government, is boldly invaded in several of our states by the police, the executive arm, and the legislatures. And the courts comply, as they surely would not do if the mental climate were to change. Now, it is especially interesting to note that the police never stop a meeting of jingoes and fire-eaters even though they advocate illegal violence; that no legislature has attempted to put a check upon those who would subvert the constitution by suppression of freedom; that those who actually have interfered with the constitutional liberties of others go unpunished; and that a Department of Justice that keeps a wary eye upon pacifists is untroubled when beliefs and policies like the following are blazoned: That force is the ultimate arbiter in human affairs; that our government must act accordingly; that we should enforce our economic self-interest against our weaker neighbors regardless of their liberties; that there is an inevitable clash between our self-interest and that of other great powers (sometimes named), and that we must fight these powers, not relying upon conciliation, arbitration, or anything else that signifies that humanity is capable of growing towards rationality in its conduct. The paradox of all this deepens towards the ridiculous or the tragic when one discovers that these men who despitefully use the constitutional guarantees are fervid worshippers of the Constitution, and firm believers that the founders, who based their policy upon trust in human nature, made the greatest political discovery of all ages, a discovery that is destined to bless the whole world! Here is intellectual hara-kiri. Asked to explain it, those who practice it tell us sincerely that they believe in freedom as an everyday method of getting along; it is only when we get into a pinch, when vital interests are at stake, or when freedom is abused, that suppression is required. What deep distrust is this! The freedom that cost our fathers so dearly precisely because it applied to the major and contested concerns of society now becomes a convenience in handling small affairs but is of no use in emergencies.