The new freedom : $b a call for the emancipation of the generous energies of a peopleWilson, Woodrow
History
The new freedom : $b a call for the emancipation of the generous energies of a people
Wilson, Woodrow
United States -- Politics and government -- 1913-1921; United States -- Social conditions -- 1865-1918
The answer must be, I am sure, that we have been in a fair way of
failure,--tragic failure. And we stand in danger of utter failure yet
except we fulfil speedily the determination we have reached, to deal with
the new and subtle tyrannies according to their deserts. Don't deceive
yourselves for a moment as to the power of the great interests which now
dominate our development. They are so great that it is almost an open
question whether the government of the United States can dominate them or
not. Go one step further, make their organized power permanent, and it may
be too late to turn back. The roads diverge at the point where we stand.
They stretch their vistas out to regions where they are very far separated
from one another; at the end of one is the old tiresome scene of
government tied up with special interests; and at the other shines the
liberating light of individual initiative, of individual liberty, of
individual freedom, the light of untrammeled enterprise. I believe that
that light shines out of the heavens itself that God has created. I
believe in human liberty as I believe in the wine of life. There is no
salvation for men in the pitiful condescensions of industrial masters.
Guardians have no place in a land of freemen. Prosperity guaranteed by
trustees has no prospect of endurance. Monopoly means the atrophy of
enterprise. If monopoly persists, monopoly will always sit at the helm of
the government. I do not expect to see monopoly restrain itself. If there
are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United
States, they are going to own it; what we have to determine now is whether
we are big enough, whether we are men enough, whether we are free enough,
to take possession again of the government which is our own. We haven't
had free access to it, our minds have not touched it by way of guidance,
in half a generation, and now we are engaged in nothing less than the
recovery of what was made with our own hands, and acts only by our
delegated authority.
I tell you, when you discuss the question of the tariffs and of the
trusts, you are discussing the very lives of yourselves and your children.
I believe that I am preaching the very cause of some of the gentlemen whom
I am opposing when I preach the cause of free industry in the United
States, for I think they are slowly girding the tree that bears the
inestimable fruits of our life, and that if they are permitted to gird it
entirely nature will take her revenge and the tree will die.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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