HARTFORD NATIONAL BANK AND TRUST COMPANY
Established 1792
HARTFORD 15, CONNECTICUT
Dear Burke Viewer:
The following is a verbatim transcript of Dr. Albert E. Burke's "CHALLENGE" program for Wednesday, April 25, 196Z, titled "DYNAMICS OF DEMOCRACY, PART II".
Police Action, 1775. Purpose: to destroy your future. This was to be done by arresting a man to destroy an idea which was then, as it can be now, your strongest weapon to defend your future. The man was Poplicola. The idea is the subject of tonight's "CHALLENGE" Part II, in the Dynamics of Democracy.
The 180th anniversary of that police action you saw a moment ago - in a most unusual place. The place is Bandung in Indonesia. The time is April 1955. 28 nations have gathered here to talk about problems of special interest to Asian and African peoples. They've just been welcomed by President Sukarno who reminded the delegates - almost all of them from newly independent countries - that the first revolution for the kind of independence they now had, began with that police action in the American colonies back in 1775. This speech and others that followed, astonished most of our top-level people in Washington. They had written off this Bandung get-together as just another springboard for communist China's political penetration of Asia and Africa. Instead, very strong support was stated for the ideas, the principles of Democracy: the very ideas and principles Poplicola here, with his friends, worked into a blueprint for a unique American way of life, after that police action - and the revolution it touched off - were over -not the way of life we had been peddling in Asia and the rest of the world up to the Bandung conference to meet the communist challenge there - not the way of life we showed the world in arms and money and machines and endless comforts and a high standard of living. But this man's unique American way of life - the one Silas Wheeler here fought for the day of that police action back in 1775: simpler and much closer to the kind of lives those people attending the Bandung conference know now.
What most of us didn't know at the time of that conference was - our strength. Not in the weapons or machines or high standard of living of today's America - which sets us apart from most of the human race: but rather the strength in our history - the strength of Silas Wheeler's kind of America, which was very close to most of the world as it is now. Mr. Sukarno, and other Asian leaders who supported him in praising Democracy at the Bandung conference were honoring this man's early America. And far fewer Americans would have been astonished by this - far more Americans would be much better prepared to deal with the world around us today, if they knew more about their own history and the very powerful dynamics of Democracy Poplicola and Silas Wheeler and his friends worked out there.
Not the kind of history that's been prettied up -- degutted and deboned of practically all controversial material - as this is true for most of today's American history books - but rather this kind of history written back in the 1843 by a Mr. Mellen Chamberlain. The title of this book is John Adams, The Statesman of the American Revolution. For a number of years before he put his results on this paper, Mr. Chamberlain wanted to know what our Silas Wheelers fought for in the American Revolution -- what the dynamics of Democracy were as they saw them, and his interviews with them hardly support today's picture of their early kind of America. Any schoolboy, for example, knows that swarms of outraged American colonists marched off to eight years of war against the British Empire to put an end to a considerable variety of injustices: to put an end to taxation without representation: to stop the Stamp Acts: and so on.
Well, what any schoolboy knows about this today misses the point honored by those supporters of Democracy at that Bandung meeting. It is a point no American can afford not to know in today's kind of world: the point that came out of this give-and-take marked on this page between Mr. Chamberlain and Silas Wheeler. Quote: Mr. Chamberlain: "My histories tell me that you men of the Revolution took up arms against intolerable oppression". Silas Wheeler: "Oppressions? What oppressions? I didn't feel them". Mr. Chamberlain: "What? You were not oppressed by the Stamp Act of 1763?" Silas Wheeler: "Nope. I never saw one of those stamps. I'm certain I never paid a penny for them". Mr. Chamberlain: "Well then, what about the Tea Tax?" Mr. Wheeler: "The Tea Tax? I never drank a drop of the stuff. The boys threw it all overboard". Mr. Chamberlian: "Well, I suppose you had been reading what Harrington or Sydney or Locke had to say about the eternal principles of liberty and freedom?" Silas Wheeler: "Nope. Never heard of them. We read only the Bible, the Catechism, Watts' Psalms and Hymns, and the Almanac". Mr. Chamberlain: "Well then. What was the matter? What did you mean in going to that fight?" Silas Wheeler: "Young Man. What we meant in going for those Redcoats was this. We had always governed ourselves, and we always meant to. The British didn't mean we should". End of quotation.
In that paragraph and others here like it, is the key to understanding what's been going on in the whole world - particularly since World War II - in Indochina and Indonesia yesterday to Algeria and the Congo this minute. The average early revolutionary Amer-ican G.I. Is were moved by one main idea: to govern themselves, to be left alone to do things: political things, social, economic and religious things their own way. The most important part of the ideas peddled by Poplicola and his friends about 200 years ago was this idea of self-government. It was then, it is now the most dynamic of all the dynamics of Democracy - but not to us. It's a long way behind us, just as most of the world is a long way behind us now. No small part of our problems and trouble in the world since World War II has come about because we have shown no great interest in seeing the dynamic of Democracy: our idea, our dynamic - work for people in the world around us. No small part of our troubles in the world since World War II has come about because we do not see in ourselves what much of the world still sees in us - the world's first modern revolutionaries.
Our most powerful tools and weapons to deal with the world around us - from develop-ing underdeveloped people to keeping the world from becoming a communist place -are only in part in our missiles, bombs, submarines and planes. In very important part, they're back in our own history: back in the ideas and the principles this man sparked into a revolution and your way of life today: back in what we once were, what our national purpose and goals once were: you know, the ones we've been setting up special committees to find for today's Americans. What are those tools and weapons? What were we? What were our national goals?
James Aitken was hanged in London, England 185 years ago this month. He was hanged because of something he did after reading the original printing of this pamphlet I have here. This is a copy of one of the most dangerous and powerful bits of writing ever put to paper. It moved Aitken and a few friends to try to burn down the city of London then - as their way to defend, and support the ideas stated in this pamphlet. He was caught and hanged - after which the British were moved to the all-out effort to stamp out those ideas, by going after their author - Poplicola.
In the 200 years since this stuff was written, it's been responsible for quite a bit of history: from the hanging of Aitken 185 years ago - to the unexpected support of the ideas of Democracy at the Bandung Conference 5 years ago - to a decision handed down by the California Supreme Court about this time last year.
A decision that began in an incident on a street corner of a city in southern California back in 1957. It was a familiar incident, in that this sort of thing has been going on a long time in cities and towns all over these United States. On this particular day, though, several people passing out pamphlets for an unpopular local political group were ordered off the public streets by some persons who didn't like what their organization stood for. When the group refused, they were arrested - and a complaint was filed against them. The wording of the complaint was particularly interesting: the ideas printed in those pamphlets were - quote - incompatible with the existing social order - unquote. The complaint was, that those ideas were dangerous to the community and should not be allowed to get around - in the interest of maintaining law and order.
That arrest went from the lower courts in California to that state's Supreme Court. One week before a fellow named Powers climbed into his US spy plane to do his share of the work involved in the defense and protection of our way of life against any possible danger from outside this nation - California's Supreme Court did its share of the work involved in the defense and protection of our way of life against danger from inside this country: by handing down a decision that amounted to a warning to some Americans to study their own history - to know the way of life Aitken died for 185 years ago and those Asian nations honored at Bandung - if they wanted a future in which they could be a free democratic people.
That Supreme Court decision pointed out that pamphleteering had deep roots in our history: that pamphlets like this one by Policola and this one called "Common Sense" by a fellow named Paine -- were a few among hundreds of ideas and opinions of some early Americans which were just about as "incompatible" with social order as they could be when they were written. These 50 United States today are the result of the fact that what is written in these early pamphlet by men like Poplicola and Paine were incompatible - even dangerous to the order of things as they were before that police action which touched off an American revolution. Poplicola, Paine, Hancock and others defined plainly in these pamphlets a kind of government for these United States in which there would always be room for incompatible -- unpopular ideas and opinions.
What that Supreme Court decision did, was to make clear again - as it's been necessary to do this time after time in our history, for Americans who either lose sight of our history or just plain don't like it, that one of the most important of all the ideas spelled out for us by the founding fathers was that stated here - that in this land we would live the good life and be a great nation because of what we would allow people to know and to do - changing the order of things as they were in the world when this powerful and dangerous idea was written back in 1761. What that idea has done here -what that freedom has done here - has given more individual men and women greater human dignity than was known in the world before that man's time. Not all Americans - only those who know what that California Supreme Court decision pointed out that no community can be defended against poor ideas - dangerous or subversive ideas or otherwise, by laws. No law passed by any government, at any time in history, has ever stopped ideas from crossing political boundaries, or moving from mind to mind. The only defense against poor ideas, is trained intelligence and better ideas.
As this was Poplicola's main concern - made clear in this powerful bit of writing about 200 years ago. It was powerful and disturbing enough to bring on that police action in 1775, and your way of life today. The kind of people who were disturbed by it then, are disturbed by it now.
In the beginning - our beginning - there was the light, seen by somewhat less than half the then American people; of self government, and freedom. No man did more, or as much, to make those things possible for us. No man was more concerned that those things continue to be possible for us - in the future. He wrote a great deal about how to stay free - in the future.
What he wrote had much to do with what he was. He was a dissenter. He believed -as did most of his friends - that every man and woman had a God-given will and a God-given responsibility to use it to make lives of dignity possible for free men everywhere. But Poplicola said men and women could not use that free will responsibility as long as they accepted their world without question. Perfection may be beyond man but trying for it isn't. So question to know things. Dissent - he said - against ,evil, against ignorancee,--against bigotry -poverty, greed and stupidity. Dissent- this great American patriot said -and improve things.
Those were the beliefs of Sam Adams - so dangerous, provocative and controversial in his day - that he wrote under the pen name of Poplicola. There were people in Sam Adam's day who thought his ideas about questioning and dissenting to be pure drivel. They weren't all left behind in our history. There were people in Poplicola's day who thought his ideas about a God-given free will and a God-given responsibility to use it, to be pure drivel, and they weren't all left behind in history, either.
Quite a few of them are still around, running the newspapers you read - which do not question or dissent, running television and. radio networks which do not question or dissent, running the giant corporations many of you work for which do not question or dissent, running state and national government in ways that make questioning-or dissenting from approved political or other points of view seem almost treasonable. Sam Adams disturbed such people when we began our revolution. He still bothers them long before that revolution is over.
But freedom, as we respect it: self government as it works for us - would be impossible without the things Sam Adams added to our dynamics of Democracy. Freedom and self-government, our way of life, are impossible without the individually responsible use of an individual free will, to do whatever our national purpose, or goals, move us to do. What Sam Adams added to the dynamics of Democracy - free will, individual responsi-bility, the right to question and dissent - these are the cornerstone of our way of life, now. No one can defend our way of life who does not know this. No man can call him-self patriotic who does not support this. Nothing sets us apart more from the Soviet or Chinese citizen today than the fact that you have the right that he made possible for you to question and dissent - as long as you want it.
Because there is no guarantee of the freedom that now makes it possible for you to have those rights in the unique way of life the Poplicolas and Silas Wheelers put together here, back in 1775. There is no guarantee of human dignity - no guarantee of the good life in this nation; and there never was. There was only the unusual blueprint for political, social and economic and religious action which they drew up in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution: two documents which intelligent men and women - with faith and knowledge, but most of all with courage - can use to stay free, to live dignified lives, and know the good life. This is a national purpose a national goal no committee has to search for. It, too, is in the American record just as worthwhile and just as easily destroyed today as in the past by people who fear it, or do not want it, as it was in our beginning. About which, more - after a short break.
The dynamics of Democracy have deep roots. They can't be laid out in the simple way Karl Marx and those who have followed him into our time, have done in these sets of laws - from Marx's theory of dialectical materialism. 'This is the way things are: this is the way things must go - forward to communism as the most advanced, develop-ed and sophisticated way of life. This is simple - powerful as an idea - but not necessarily so. There is another way to see this business of society's going forward to the most advanced, developed and sophisticated way of life, in the future.
This way. The record of human history can be boiled down just as truthfully this way-
in these sketches - as it can in those laying out communism's version of the same. In the beginning there was Og the caveman, who ruled his roost pretty much by the strength of his good club arm. He was the power. His word was law - and final. It took a very long time for this version of the power and the responsibility to use it, to change. From Og the caveman's time to Louis the king's is several hundred thousand years. But, Louis the king was the power: his word was law and final right into some very recent history. Poplicola wrote hard and long against the divine right of kinds to rule in our history. Well, things did change though, through time, and as people and civilization became more advanced, the more developed and sophisticated way of life - where power moves from the small ruling group to - you. This minute. What peoples in the world today hold the power- - to be used according to their individual conscience, by their free will, to be the final word in their affairs? Is it the communist peoples of the world - ruled, at the moment this way, by the group or is it the peoples of the democracies - ruled this way, by widely spread vote? What then is there to say that this way of life the communist world with power in the hands of the group is not - in fact, a step down, backward - to a less advanced, less developed and sophisticated way of life? It may end up the future for the human race, after all - but not because of this simple view of history and these laws. Not because it's inevitable and has to be.
If the world becomes a communist place in the future, it will be because something happens to weaken or destroy this most highly developed way of life - Democracy. Nothing can do this faster than just plain ignorance - of the ideas of Poplicola, about freedom: the ideas of the Silas Wheelers in our history about self government: the part played in the working out of our dynamics of Democracy by the pamphlet writers: our strength in our history, as well as right now.
The point is we can't defend what we don't understand. What our history makes quite clear is that what we are has worked. The United States has worked. The principles and ideas that are the dynamics of Democracy - freedom, individualism - have worked. This is the stuff Poplicola and his friends were willing to fight and die for - but for which they fought and won. They won the battle for our past. The battle for the future is yours, right now - with these our weapons.