Too True

Acute, though pessimistic. Bruce Bilven's prophecy on the future of free speech in yesterday's Block Foundation lecture had the novelty of being an address that said something. It was a relief from the meaningless mouthings to which prominent men have treated the American public lately. The modern demagogue would have ranted endlessly about freedom of the press being a "glorious ideal cemented in the hearts of the American pee-pul by our great constitooshun." Mr. Bliven analyzed the facts and presented his conclusion that free speech was well on the road to suppression. Whether or not his reasoning was correct, he at least had something more than trite catch-words to utter.

Mankind is on the threshold of change, evidenced by growing unrest. To suppress the unrest, the rulers are limiting that unique feature of democracy, free speech, and this limitation in turn is aggravating the unrest. One must agree with Mr. Bliven that the normal human being prefers the application of his theory to open discussion about it. Consequently, when one group of people wants to discard a system, say, of government, and another wants to retain it, they fight each other by fair methods or foul. Boiled down, the principle always practiced is that the end justifies the means. One of the means followed in warfare; another is suppression of free speech.

The excuse, of course, for this suppression is that the other fellow is not printing or telling the truth; he is just broadcasting a lot of lying propaganda. In that case, would it not be more sensible and less cruel to fight fire with fire and retaliate by spreading propaganda for one's own side? Better to allow both factions to express themselves whether they stick to the truth or not. For in the welter of lies it is quite conceivable that truth, or the closest approximation of it possible, might pay. Honesty would be such a rarity that the person who possessed it would be listened to before everyone else.

Proponents of this theory have an undoubted advantage in the fact that it has never failed--because it has never been tried. Nor is it likely that it ever will be tried, for it runs counter to human nature. One must agree, then with Mr. Bliven, it appears, in his unhappy conclusion. If our present economic and political system is seriously threatened by a rival, such things as freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of press, will inevitably disappear. --Yale News.