The Pittsburgh Press (June 29, 1946)
I DARE SAY —
Stand up! Speak out!
By Florence Fisher Parry
The published list to the War dead stays with me, a rebuke… I keep thinking of that young Navy officer who, running for Congress, said in all seriousness: “When ships were sinking and young Americans were dying… I firmly resolved to serve my country in peace as honestly as I tried to serve it in war.”
Is that what I am doing? You? What is our contribution?
What are we saying in our conversations with our friends – yes, and the strangers whom we talk with sometimes? What are we reading? Are we doing all we can to understand what’s going on in high places? Are we watching what our representatives are doing in Congress? Are we examining how they support or kill bills which – make no mistake about it – are to determine the course of history and the fate of humanity?
Are we defeatist or are we militant? Do we just complain or do we strive to DO something about our grievances? Ten years ago in France, in Germany, in England, populations made up of citizens much like you and me were wasting time, were letting things go, were willing to appease, were leaving it to the Chamberlains. Some, in the early days of the War, when it looked as though the Nazis and the Fascists would win, became collaborationists, if only by their attitude of laissez-faire. Now they are called traitors, and many have paid the penalty of death.
Had we been they in those early days, what would we have done? Think carefully. It is so easy to condemn.
Affirmation, please!
I see so many Appeasers here, they are all about! Those who like comfort and friendly relations with those in power, and would sacrifice their secret convictions to easy friendships, and have not the courage to make an enemy. They are dangerous. They have the makings of traitors. A traitor, said a patriot to me recently, is one who fails to serve his country well. Well, negation is failure. Laissez-faire is failure. What we need is more AFFIRMATION in this world.
But what can I do? we say. We can do one thing: we can watch our legislators. We can examine their records. Before the primaries, before the elections, we can make a study of our candidates.
At least there remains to us this last symbol of free choice. Let no man be credited who says the secret ballot is a farce! IT STILL WORKS. Let it work, then, to restore to us the freedoms outlined in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights.
For if we do not, we have lost America.
I have been reading some of the publications that are put out by a number of our unions. They are frightening. The Merchant Marines have a sheet called “The Pilot.” It is your business to read this and see how the passions of hate are aroused in union members by inflammatory editorials and news distortions. We were recently relieved by news of a strike postponement has never brought us anything but increased demands?
The tragic thing is that YOUTH is being exploited – yes, the returned Veteran, too. Youth is strong and given to action and susceptible to passionate espousals of Causes and will work for them. So that Youth is always the prey of older, wilier minds, schooled in the manipulations of mass moods. Youth feels first, thinks afterward; is easily impressed into militant action.
What are we doing to prevent this? Are we taking time out to be eloquent ourselves? Organizing youth on the side of our Republic instead of on the side of the iconoclasts who would destroy it? The Leftists are ceaselessly at work, they have infiltrated into our every institution; our schools and universities, even into our churches here and there; they form the most powerful lobby in Washington today; they are represented in our publications; they spot themselves in radio forums; they work our Unions.
Investment that pays
Now youth is by nature radical, and does not cool until it is over the fine fever of its early ecstasies. It used to be that we could humor and give fond play to this excessiveness; not now. It plays too easily into the hands of the enemy. WE MUST GET OUT WORK IN EARLIER or it can well be too late.
For Time is of the essence, a day has the fatefulness and urgency of a year – a year, a century – these rushing times! That is why those who have reached their temperate maturity, and who have minds and tongues, must USE THEM NOW as never before – use them on the young, the ignorant, the bemused, the discouraged.
Remember, they are being taught – fast – to hate us, to mistrust us; and we must disarm that hostility.
We cannot do it by talking to each other.
We can only do it by making friends and confidants of them. I say it is the solemn duty of every mature man and woman who would save and preserve our Republic and its free functionings, to leave his own pursuits a given length of time each day, and GO FORTH TO PREACH THE GOSPEL OF AMERICA – be it to the elevator man, the tycoon, the High School boy or girl with Home-work to do, the friend at luncheon.
God knows there is no other work that we can do so profitably.