FAITH OF A DEMOCRAT
Humphrey, Senator Hubert H.
FAITH OF A DEMOCRAT By Senator Hubert H. Humphrey THERE ARE TWO WAYS of reporting history. The first is in terms' of battles won and lost and the fall and rise of governments; the other is...
...They sought to free men from fear...
...It was out of this conviction and out of recognition of this eternal truth that mortal man, with all his limitations, his prejudices and inabilties, created the United Nations...
...In the fall, he ousted Joseph Ball to become junior Senator from Minnesota...
...to free them from social and economic injustice, and from insecurity...
...SOMETIMES it's worth while to take a look around in history...
...All must be privileged to enjoy the opportunity of good health, of productive work, of education, of adequate housing, and of decent living conditions...
...They want security, and liberty...
...The great political and social experiments taking place in Europe—in the free countries of Europe—are but another expression of this idea of democracy...
...This is our objective—fa world of free and equal men, who will in their freedom create and secure Just and enduring peace...
...Mankind from the very beginning has sought a society in which he can live in peace and security, und has groped his way...
...We were among the first to present to the modern world a coherent political faith based upon the dignity of the individual, the equality and fraternity of mankind...
...It has as its philosophers Samuel Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, Tom Paine, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt...
...Here indeed was the triumph of Copernicus, Galileo, Newton—men of ideas, men possessed by ideas...
...It receives its political inspiration from the logic of the stoics, the compassion of the martyrs, the faith of the philosophers of natural law...
...To be sure our generation lives in a world of which part has lost its mind...
...Our call to freedom in 1776 upset the thrones of Europe and convulsed the continent...
...We were among the first to pattern a structure of government and a form of society in which the liberties of a people were guaranteed and opportunity was to be assured...
...It was the old, old doctrine of authoritarianism, pushed with the force of guns and marching feet—nothing more than the ancient curse of "divine right" of the strong to rule the weak...
...characterized by the great intellectual revolution, the Age of Science...
...That society js only obtainuble when the principle of government by the consent of the governed, rule by majority, and respect for minority rights is firmly ingrained in the social fabric of all nations...
...Men everywhere heard of it and spoke of it and acted to achieve it...
...We find economists and political philosophers talking in terms of abundance within the framework of individual freedom...
...But in this generation democracy has been challenged by another ideology...
...A leader of Americans for Democratic Action since its founding, he is now its national chairman...
...to free them from poverty...
...The morality of our democratic faith compels us to cleanse our body politic of the gudt that arises from our distortion of democratic principles through discrimination and bigotry...
...the other is in terms of the discoveries of the mind...
...They became possessed with the idea that there were physical laws they could fathom...
...Democracy was the concept of today and tomorow...
...It put into the hearts and breasts of the colonial people, the under-privileged and the subjected, the consuming desire of individual liberty...
...Each generation salvages the immortality of the preceding ones to create a steady progression of civilization...
...The 17th Century wa...
...And out of the sacrifice of two world wars we again come back to the immortal idea—of the oneness of man- of his essential unity...
...These are long-run aims of a people of democratic faith for a type of world government based upon law, in which individual rights are preserved, and where there is room for a diversity of cultures...
...Men became possessed with the idea that the physical universe was their concern— that they could ask questions about natural phenomena without incurring the wrath of God...
...Democracy met and conquered this old concept years ago in nearly every civilized nation of the world...
...But what did we see when we examined this "new order...
...With this questioning, the ideology of democracy came into being...
...America has let loose upon this world the most powerful and dynamic political and social force in the history of man...
...Today, too, the vital force in the world is the search for freedom...
...Our groping and experimentation in the halls fo Congress, evolving such programs as the New Freedom and the New Deal, arc but further expressions '\>f a people with the desire to emancipate themselves from fear, from insecurity, and from oppression...
...Future generations will look at the period in which we live as merely one of-a moral crisis...
...all were possessed of the same idea...
...The action against' it was rear-guard, defensive, and uncertain...
...NO BETTER EXAMPLE of our maturing democracy can be found than the ever-growing demand that all people, regardless of race, color, or creed, be guaranteed full and equal civil lights...
...OUT OF EVERY bitter experience of history, out of every tragedy—man learns in his sorrow...
...Men are no longer just content to talk of their security...
...The humanitarian of this generation is one who understands the interdependence of these two principles—freedom and security...
...Fortunately, though man is mortal, his thoughts and ideas are immortal...
...Yes, despite a generation terrified by concentration camps, dictatorship, and world war—in the perspective of Time the achievements of the first half of the 20th Century will outweigh the tragedy and the suffering...
...It hat its roots deep in the spiritual substance of Judeo-Chriitianity...
...We have the faith and conviction, however, that the forces of creative thought, of education, and of civilization will, as they have through the ages, survive the obstacles...
...These men all spoke of the same ideology...
...In city after city—in state ufter state—human rights are being reaffirmed and protected by law...
...It will record, however, thnt we survived that crisis and moved forward to the greater fulfillment of the idea of freedom...
...Today, if we fully understand the power of our idea and it^ true meaning, we can easily maintain the eminence of the democratic faith that only yesterday spread from mind to mind and from heart to heart throughout the world...
...The democratic spirit of the people now calls upon our national government to destroy the last vestige of intolerance...
...We see many manifestations of it: the rise of nationalism of the colonial peoples...
...We found ii wasn't new at all...
...In Italy, Germany and Russia the leaders talked of what they said was a "new order,"—something new and streamlined...
...American people are acting to redeem their honor...
...History has always demonstrated thnt is n long struggle and is not something that can be accomplished immediately...
...Our idea of democracy was embodied in the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence and in the words of our Constitution...
...The 18th and 19th Centuries were characterized by new ideas that possessed men—the idea that if there were physical laws of the universe that men could fathom and ask questions about, then why not ask question about the nature of man-made society...
...The United Nations is a summnrlzed expression of the desire of mankind to live in a world of law and order...
...This is democracy's answer to the fraud pf dictatorship...
...Our maturing democracy calls for the recognition that all must be free from insecurity...
...In this article, Senator Humphrey gives a concise summary of the historic creed of the present-day liberal — the faith of a democrat...
...Only 300 years ago man began seriously to question himself about the nature of the physical world in which he lived...
...Hubert H. Humphrey first attained national recognition when, as mayor of Minneapolis, he led the fight for a strong civil rights plank at the Democratic National Convention last summer...
...the oppressed and the poverty stricken following the leadership of those who use the symbols of freedom, even though their purpose may be otherwise...
...Very often a look at some of the thrilling chapters of our past provides new faith for the battles of the present...
...We never moved a battalion or a regiment on the continent of Europe in the 1800's, yet the idea of the Declaration of Independence produced the doctrine of the "Rights of Man" and broke the back of oppression and the power of kings...
...OF ALL PEOPLE who should understand the immortality of the idea and the power of ideology, the American people should be the first...
...In every "generation the mind pf man reaches out to new length and never shrinks back to its former dimensions...
...UNTIL THE FIRST WOHLD WAR this ideology was on the offensive...
Vol. 32 • June 1949 • No. 26
