Survival of the Species; Ben Moreell

WHEN Charles Darwin's book, On the Origin of Species, appeared in·1859 it was strongly condemned by those who believed that his theory of evolution contradicted the thesis that man is a creature of God. But now it is gener ally accepted that the theory of evolution is not a contra diction of God's designs for mankind. Today I want to discuss with you not the origin of species, but the survival of species; and I want to discuss this subject in terms of faith in my fellow man, which stems from a faith in God. I might have chosen a shorter title-a single word-liberty. For I believe that the key to the survival of civilization is human liberty. When our liberty is gone-whether because some aggressor takes it from us by force, or because we ourselves willingly vote it away-civilized man will die. Men will become robots, machines without minds, controlled and driven by god less masters. God And Freedom I believe that God intended men to be free to make their own decisions and to be responsible for the consequences [213 ] of those decisions. Thus it seems to me that it is an act against God for men to pass laws which destroy individual liberty; which deprive persons of the responsibility for their own acts or for their own welfare. Such laws are ad vocated by persons who lack faith in God and in their fellow men!

It seems to me that there is convincing evidence to sup port my beliefs on this subject. And the basic evidence is found in the fact that no person is physically or mentally or morally identical to any other person. For example, everyone knows that the fingerprints of all persons are different. And these differences-these individualities, these inequalities-carry through all the physical, mental, and moral characteristics of mankind. It seems to me that if we have faith in God, we must realize that He had a purpose in designing us so that no person is like any other person; that is to say, so that each person is an individual. Let us examine this God-given individuality of men and speculate upon its relationship to liberty and responsibility and survival. The Right To Choose It must be obvious that liberty necessarily means freedom to choose foolishly as well as wisely; freedom to choose evil as well as good; freedom to enjoy the rewards of good judgment, and freedom to suffer the penalties of bad judg ment. If this is not true, the word "freedom" has no mean ing. Yet there are persons in America who wish to pass laws to force people to do only "good," or at least their [214 ] concept of what is good. These would-be dictators are not content with a preventive law which punishes a person who deliberately chooses to injure his neighbor; a law which prevents any person from forcing his viewpoint upon any other person; a law which penalizes the person who interferes with the liberty of others. On the contrary, these persons who arrogate to themselves the functions of God demand a positive law to compel others to do as they wish them to do. And-for some reason which I can not understand-these same people use the words "liberty"

and "democracy" to justify their plans to deprive other men of freedom. These proposed laws are frequently justilled on the ground that there are physical and mental inequalities in the world; that those inequalities result in economic in equalities; and that the primary function of government is to pass laws that will tend to equalize such inequalities. Is not this concept of government a rather brazen indict ment of God? Is not this an acceptance of the communistic theory of using force to take "from each according to his abilities" and to give "to each according to his needs"? It is true that no two persons are equal, and that some persons receive more pay for their services than do other persons. But my faith in God makes me insist that there is a logical and good reason for this fact. And I believe that this is the reason: This inequality among persons is a law of nature, a law which is just as unchangeable and just as necessary to understand as is any other natural law, as, for example, the law of gravity. This particular law is known as the "law [215 ] of variation," and from the unrestricted operation of this law of nature comes all human progress. The law of varia tion permits children to be different from their parents.

It permits brothers to think differently and to act differ ently. It permits the existence of both misers and philan thropists; saints and sinners; rich and poor. It permits in ventors to invent, managers to manage-and purchasing agents to purchase. It permits each person to seek a job or profession which is most suited to his inherent talents and his desires. It encourages a voluntary division of labor, with resulting maximum efficiency and greater prosperity for all. Without this variation-this unequalness-our social structure would be similar to that of an anthill or a bee hive; where each member is born to do a certain predeter mined job which he does with blind allegiance to his society and with no consideration of personal interests or preferences. Unfortunately there are many persons in the world who hate variations and inequalities, who admire the type of society developed by the ants and bees. These people see that variation among human beings has allowed one per son to produce more than another, with resulting differ ences in material possessions and comforts. And then these self-appointed supervisors of human destiny, who cannot tolerate variation, begin to agitate for a law to take away from the high producer and give to the low producer.

They want to use the force of government to repeal the law of variation; to redesign mankind; to force their con cepts of morality and economics on all other persons; in short-to play God. [216 ] Masterminds At Work And in this process they deny to every person the right to dispose of the products of his own labor as he chooses. On the contrary, it must be as they, the "masterminds,» decree I These so-called do-gooders and benevolent legis lators deny this right of choice to the producer be cause they fear that other people will spend their earn ings in a pattern ·diHerent from that which they would plan for them. They have no faith in the voluntary deci sions of free personsI For example, the person who earns the money might want to endow a college or a hospital or a summer camp for poor children; but the planner wants to take the money away from him and use it to subsidize "cheap" electricity for the people who live in Tennessee or in the Pacific Northwest. The person with a good income might want to spend some of his money for a trip around the world, but the planner calls this "social inequality," and he pro poses a law whereby the government may take the indi vidual's money, by force, and use it for some so-called socially-useful purpose like encouraging the growth of surplus potatoes, for which there is no market, in order that they may be destroyed. Or the planner may propose to deprive the producer of his money and apply it to some alleged "social good" like government ownership of hous ing, or a government steel plant, or government-controlled education, or some similar project which gives to govern ment the power to tell·the people what they must or must not do; how they must or must not live.

[217 ] Enemies Of Liberty I am willing to concede that the do-gooder may have the best intentions in the world. But it cannot be denied that the laws he proposes always involve more government, more government ownership and operation of the means of production, more government interferences in the dis tribution of what individuals have produced, more power for government and less freedom of choice for individuals. I hold that the people who advocate these positive laws against freedom of choice are-knowingly or unknowingly -the enemies of freedom and progress. They themselves have lost all faith in liberty and in the ability of free per sons to care for themselves and voluntarily to extend a helping hand to their neighbors in need. Thus they band together to advocate laws antagonistic to humanity; laws which restrain liberty, thwart variation, belie inequalities, and defy God's design!

Against the background of my many years of service in the Navy, I make this declaration: I do not fear the Rus sian Army, or the atom bomb, or the hydrogen bomb, nearly so much as I fear this concept of using the law to relieve individuals of the responsibility for their own wel fare and to deprive them of their freedom of choice. We can all see the danger of a military threat to our freedom. If we are attacked we will fight, and we will win! But few of us appear to understand this insidious process whereby we use our own laws and our own government to destroy our own liberties just as surely as if some foreign conqueror had power over us. [218 ] Here is an example of how we are deceiving ourselves: Let us suppose that some foreign power could confiscate the incomes of persons in America; and let us suppose, further, that this foreign power were to confiscate 89% of the income of our most efficient producer. Would this pro ducer continue to produce abundantly under such circum stances, or would he not soon relax and begin producing only enough to subsist himself and those dependent upon him? This situation is easy enough to understand when we visualize the confiscator as a foreigner. But we do not seem to understand it when the confiscator is a combina tion of fellow citizens. For we ourselves have voted to connscate 89% of the income of our best producers I The Way To Communism When will this confiscation of an individual's income rise to 100%? Do you believe that ambitious men who are hungry for power would stop short of this complete communism if, by going on, they could achieve their aims? Let us con sider this question: Just how much liberty does a person really have when more than half of his earnings are taken from him without his consent and are spent for purposes distasteful to him?

Not satisfied with taking thjs high percentage of a per son's income, we Americans have also voted to confiscate 38% of the earnings of our most successful industries even before the owners of the income get it. And our represent atives in Congress are now considering the possibility of raising the take to 41%. [219 ] Even in conquered Germany and Japan, we would not dare to take 38% of the industrial earnings, because we know that the results would be disastrous. And yet, in the face of this knowledge, we are seriously considering taking 41% of the earnings of all successful American industries. Unless we change the present course of our thinking in America, the next step will be Soro-and then more1 The End Of The Road It makes one wonder whether we are deliberately trying to destroy ourselves. All along this course our liberties begin to slip away from us. In the beginning this happens slowly and almost unnoticed. The "emergency" and "tem porary" restrictions and compulsions by government are not generally recognized as lost liberties. But the end re sult of this procedure-a procedure that always comes neatly wrapped in the American flag and labeled "social justice"-is complete government control, complete loss of liberty, and the extinction of civilized man as we know him. Why should this connscation-a percentage of our production that even a conqueror would not dare to take be called liberty? Why should the word "freedom" be used to describe these government compulsions and restric tions? Certainly the founders of this republic had no such concept of freedom.

Now I know that those who disagree with me will say that this is a democracy and that we can vote for anything we please; that, in fact, we can vote to tum all industry and all income over to the government, if we so desire. [220 ] That is true; but consider this: It is also true that we could vote to re-establish slavery in America. Would that make slavery "righf' or "democratic"? We could demo cratically vote to have a state religion and to force every one to conform to the majority decision; but that would make a mockery of democracy and the right to vote. We could democratically vote to print enough money to give every person a million dollars; but would such exercise of the franchise help anyone except those who wish to destroy America? Inalienable Rights All these measures-and others of a similar nature-could be enacted legally and democratically under the concept of majority rule. But would any person be so foolish as to say that they should be enacted? Will any thinking person say that a law is "right" merely because a majority has voted for it? We must always remember that our Consti tution was designed to protect the freedom of the smallest possibleminority-one person-againstthe demandsof the greatest possible majority-all other persons combined.

That single idea of inalienable rights of the individual person is-or, at least, was-the fundamental spirit of the American tradition of government. And if we lose that concept of government, by force or by our own votes, the American dream of liberty will be ended. I am very glad that we have a fonn of government that requires voting, because so long as this condition exists" there is nothing to prevent us from voting against these [221 ] immoral laws that are leading the American people into bondage to their own government. It is still possible to turn back; and it is not yet too late to tum back. If we really want to face the responsibility, to pay the price, of a return to freedom, we -can still have it. How To Destroy Progress Let us speculate on the price which we must pay for lib erty. First and foremost, all so-called welfare schemes must go; for dependence upon government will destroy progress and production in two ways: First, the high pro ducers will not continue to do their best if most of the product of their labor is taken from them. Second, the low producers will not be eager to work harder if they know that government will guarantee to them the security of housing, food, medical care, old age benefits, and the other necessities of life. If we continue along this path to the misnamed welfare state, we must soon find ourselves in the position of our reservation Indians, who have had a system of government-guaranteed "security" for the past hundred years.

The inevitable result of such "security"-to the Indians or to any other people who try it-is dramatically told in a report from a young minister, R. J. Rushdoony, who is now a missionary to the Indians on one of our American reservations: One of the surestconsequencesof a governmentof ((welfare" and C(security~~ is the rapid decline and death of responsibility and character. [222] Whatever the pre-reservation Indian was, and his faults were real, he was able to take· care of himself and had a char acter becoming to his culture and religion. He was a responsible person. Today he is far from that. The wretched security he has had, beginning with the food 'and clothing dole of early years, designed to enforce the reservation system and destroy Indian resistance, has sapped him of character. The average Indian knows that he can gamble and drink away his earnings and still be sure that his house and land will remain his own, and, with his hunting rights, he can always eke out some kind of existence.

Government men too often hamper and impede the man with initiative and character. This is hecause their program inevitably must be formulated in terms of the lowest common denominator, the weakest Indian. In addition, the provisions of the government for the "welfare" and "security" of the Indians remove the consequences from their sinning and irre sponsibility. The result is a license to irresponsibility, which all the touted government projects cannot counteract. And I believe the results would be no better for the best hundred or thousand persons selected from any society, after a generation or so of the same kind of "welfare" and "security" government. ... Slavery In America Let us look at another example from our own history. Here is a statement from a recently-published article called Wards of the Government by Dean Russell: The constitutions of former American slave states generally speCifiedthat the masters must provide their slaves with ade quate housing, food, medical· care, and old-age benefits. The Mississippi Constitution contained this additional sentence: [223 ] "The legislature shall have no power to pass laws for the emancipation of slaves ... [except] where the slave shall have rendered the State some distinguished service;"

The highest honor that Mississippi could offer a man for distinguished service to his country was personal responsibility for his own welfarel His reward was freedom to find his own job and to have his own earnings, freedom to be responsible for his.own medical care, freedom to save for his own old age. In short, his reward was the individual opportunities - and the personal responsibilities-that have always distinguished a free man from a dependent. What higher honor can any government offer? But many present-day Americans are trying to avoid this personal responsibility that is freedom. They are voting for men who promise to install a system of compulsory, govern ment-guaranteed "security"-a partial return to the old slave laws of Georgia that guaranteed to all slaves "the right to food and raiment, to kind attention when sick, to maintenance in old age.... " And the arguments used to defend this present-day trend toward the bondage of a Welfare State are essentially the same arguments that were formerly used to defend the bondage of outright slavery.

For example, many of the slave-holders claimed that they kne\v what was "best for the slaves." After all, hadn't the mas ters cCrescued"theslaves from a life of savagery? The advocates of government-guaranteed "security" also claim that they know what is best for the people. Many of them argue in this fashion: ceAfter all" haven't the American people conclusively shown that they are incapable of handling the responsibility for their own welfare?" Many of the slave-holders sincerely believed that the c'dumb, ignorant slaves" would starve to death unless their welfare was guaranteed by the masters. And the advocates of compulsory "security" frequently say: (cAre you in favor of letting people starve?" [224 ] But as proof of the fact that personal responsibility for one's own welfare brings increased material well-being, consider the emancipated slaves. Among them were old and crippled and sick people. They had no homes, no jobs, and little education.

But-most precious of all-the former slaves were responsi ble for their own welfare. They were free. They had the privi lege of finding their own security. Now compare the remarkable progress of those former slaves to the lack of progress of the American Indians who were made wards of the government; who were given' state-guaranteed "security" instead of freedom with responsibility. In 1862, most American Negroes were slaves. Today they are about as self.. supporting and responsible as other American citizens. Mean while the Indians as a group have become less self-supporting and more dependent on govemment aid. It has been claimed that many thousands of Indians will actually die of starvation unless the government feeds them. If this is true, why is it so? .. How To Destroy A Person To those two reports on the results of government-guaran teed "security" I desire to add this thought: If I should want to destroy you, I would try to relieve you of the responsibility for your own welfare and to make you de pendent upon me for food, clothing, housing, medical care, and the other necessities of life. After a few years of such dependence you would be helpless, subject to my every commandin effect, a slave.

But in spite of the. two cases I have noted above, and 'many similar ones which can be cited from the long record of history, there are well-intentioned but misinformed persons who still insist that unless government supports [225] its citizens they will be ill-clotheq, ill-housed, and ill-fed. This belief is often expressed by the question: "Would you let them starve ?" Freedom Rejected Do the people who utter such nonsense understand the meaning of their proposals? In effect they are saying that a free person in a free society cannot support himself; that a free American cannot or will not support his own family; that free Americans will permit their less fortunate neighbors to starve; that our American doctors will not aid a sick person who has no money; that persons with freedom of choice will choose to let homeless people sleep in the streets; that a free people will reject their responsi bilities to their fellow men; and that we have renounced Christ's commandments on love and charity.

I refuse to concede that we Americans have sunk so low. If we have, then liberty is dead, and we are taking part in its·interment. If we cannot and will not accept the re sponsibilities of liberty and a voluntary society of free men, then indeed is civilized man at the end of his rope. If I had any thought that this is the case, I would not be speaking to you today. For I believe that we Americans want liberty, and that we are willing and able to pay the price for it. This price which we must pay is the abolition of all spe ciallaws for all special groups and interests. Subsidies to businessmen as well as to farmers must stop. Special privi leges and preferences for able-bodied veterans must be [226] ended. There must be an end to special laws which exempt labor groups from the consequences of their actions. The special tax privileges for producer and consumer coopera tives must be repealed, or extended to all corporate busi ness. The law which gives tenants special treatment at the expense of home owners must be abolished. Whatever the sacrifice, our government must live within its income; and the amount of that income which is taken from the people must be drastically reduced. We must abolish all privileges and ask of government the only equality which can pos sibly exist-equality before the law. In short, we mus't\de mand that government confine itself to the primary func tions of protecting the life, liberty, and property of the individual-all individuals. Then each person will be free to do as he pleases so long as he does not interfere with the right of any other person to do as he pleases. Then each person will enjoy as much equality and security as it is possible for him to have in a world of admitted inequalitr and insecurity.

Liberty The Key To Survival I am aware that this price for liberty may seem high to some people. I know that those groups and persons who now enjoy those special privileges will do all in their power to keep them-and to extend them. Even so, I have faith that the vast majority of the American people want liberty and are willing to accept the personal responsi bility which liberty requires. I believe that the only re quirement for the return to liberty is an understanding of [227 ] what it is. I believe that we will understand it and that we will then return to it. I have this faith in my fellow Americans because I believe they will know that upon liberty-and upon liberty alone-depends the survival of the speciesl [228 ] FOOD CONTROL DURING FORTY-SIX CENTURIES A Contribution To The History Of Price Fixing THE man, or class of men, who controls the supply of essen tial foods is in possession of the supreme power. The safe guarding of the food supply has therefore been the concern of governments since they have been in existence. They had to exercise this control in order to hold the supreme power, because all the people need food and it is the only commodity of which this is true.