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Senator
Warren G. Harding, Republican Candidate For President,
August 6, 1920 (4:36)
[title]
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This file is available on CD0200.
This CD contains over 28 hours of historical
audio.
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"Liberty
Under The Law"
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countrymen, the menacing tendency
of the present day is not chargeable
wholly to the unsettled and fevered
conditions caused by the war. The
manifest weakness in popular government
lies in the temptation to appeal to
group citizenship for political advantage.
There is no greater peril. The Constitution
contemplates no class, and recognizes
no [?]. It broadly includes all the
people, with specific recognition
for none. And the highest consecration
we can make today is a committal of
the Republican Party to that saving
constitutionalism which contemplates
all America as one people and holds
just government free from influence
on the one hand and unmoved by intimidation
on the other. It would be the blindness
of folly to ignore the activities
in our own country which are aimed
to destroy our economic system and
to commit us to the colossal tragedy
which has both destroyed all freedom
and made Russia impotent. This movement
is not to be halted in [?] liberties.
We must not abridge the freedom of
speech, the freedom of press, or the
freedom of assembly, because there
is no promise in repression. These
liberties are as sacred as the freedom
of religious belief, as inviolable
as the rights of life, and the pursuit
of happiness. We do hold to the right
to crush sedition, to stifle a menacing
contempt for law, to stamp out the
perils to the safety of the republic
or its people when emergency calls,
because security and the majesty of
the law are the first essentials of
liberty. He who threatens destruction
of the government by force, or flaunts
his contempt for lawful authority
ceases to be a loyal citizen and forfeits
his rights to the freedom of the Republic.
Let it be said to all of America that
our plan of popular government contemplates
such orderly changes as the crystallized
intelligence of the majority of our
people think best. There can be no
modification of this underlying rule,
but no majority shall abridge the
rights of a minority. Men have a right
to question our system in fullest
freedom, but they must always remember
that the right to freedom impose the
obligations which maintain it. Our
policy is not of repression, but we
make appeal today to American intelligence
and patriotism, when the Republic
is menaced from within, just as we
[?] American patriotism when our rights
were threatened from without. We call
on all America for steadiness so that
we may proceed deliberately to the
readjustment which concerns all the
people. Our party platform fairly
expresses the conscience of Republicans
on industrial relations. No party
is indifferent to the welfare of the
wage earner. To ask his good fortune
is of deepest concern. We seek to
make that good fortune permanent.
We do not oppose, but approve collective
bargaining because that is an outstanding
right, but we are unalterably insistent
that its exercise must not destroy
the equally sacred right of the individual
in his necessary pursuit of a livelihood.
Any American has the right to quit
his employment. So has every American
the right to seek employment. The
group must not endanger the individual,
and we must discourage group prey
upon one another. And none shall be
allowed to forget that government's
obligations are alike to all the people |
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