being. They had been poor. They had had little. They were victims of occasional periods of famine; and they had no reserve with which to meet pestilence and accident. Men hoped for better material conditions of life.

And better material conditions seemed hopeless under a despotism. Theoretically you would think that nourishing food, vitamins, clothing, shelter, medical care, bathtubs, radios, automobiles, lipsticks, movies might be as plentiful in a despotism as in a democracy. Plenty should be the result of the application of science and invention, of utilization of natural resources, of management of power and technology.

But there is one characteristic of despotism that makes plenty unlikely: When men are means and not ends, war is inevitable. Despots will have no hesitation in sacrificing any number of gallons of gasoline or pounds of dynamite or units of man power. The unit-man-should, they hold, be happy to be used up for the greater good, the good of the State. Furthermore every despot is forced to war periodically. It is a very good way to keep his people in order and in line.

Democracy believes quite the other way; that man is supreme. However, so long as despots are allowed to grind their teeth and cast their greedy eyes on the possessions of others, unsheathing with threats their bloody swords, then democracies have the choice of bowing down to the yoke or of defending themselves

against the primitive barbarian. The Dutch and Norwegians spent their money for social services. The Danes had reached a stage of civilization envied by all the world. But they could not defend themselves; and now they must wish that somehow or other they could have joined with many of their smaller neighbors in some form of collective security. England spent more for her program of popular welfare and less on airplanes before 1937. Inadequate expenditure for national defense nearly cost the defeat of the hopes of mankind throughout all past ages.

So long as depotism exists on earth, there will be plenty-plenty of guns, battleships, fighter planes, forts, tanks, bandages; but for this reason there will be a scarcity of vitamins, doctors, schools, playgrounds, lectures, operas, and travel. The individual will never have plenty; he will never have security, so long as there is a despotism to fight. What should go into goods, social services, food, clothing, and shelter, will of necessity go into materials of war-and quite properly so.

Doge Thomas Moncenigo made some wise remarks in Venice in 1421:

All you need to do to maintain our happy state of affairs is to pray God to keep you in the healthy track you have followed to this day. If you keep on, you will become powerful and possessors of all the riches of the Christian world.

Guard against taking other people's goods as you would against fire; and against making war unjustly. If you do, God will punish you for it. Then those who now have 10,000 ducats will have 1,000; those who have ten houses will be reduced to one; and so on with everything else. No more goods; no more credit; no more reputation. Instead of Masters as you now are, you will find yourselves subjects, and of whom? Of these soldiers, warriors, mercenaries whom you hire.

So while men may have their material wants satisfied under despotism for a time, this satisfaction cannot continue. Too large a share of the national income will go into war. Too many lives will be sacrificed. To secure happiness and gain permanent peace, men must stamp out despotism and remove it from the face of the earth.

It is the slavery of despotism that men would like to leave behind them. They would like to proceed to a world where men have worth, where the human personality this gift of God-is cherished, not slaughtered. The French at the time of the Revolution called this new goal FRATERNITY. Thomas Jefferson called it

THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS.

XI

FORWARD MARCH

"And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

-John viii:32

It was customary for our ancestors to take the position that what could not be cured must be endured; that life was short; and why not be patient and make the best of despotism? This was not the idea held by John Ball, Jack Straw, and Wat Tyler. They fought, they were beaten; but their ideas lingered on. Around the fire some told the story of Robin Hood who fled from tyranny and fought against the tyrant. In the evening, after the day's work was done and men could live in the fairy world where all was arranged to their heart's desire, they would hear of Cinderella or the Ugly Duckling, those dramas of hatred of privilege. Ali Baba, Aladdin, the Magic Carpet express the hope for peace and plenty. Tales and dreams kept alive the hatred of despotism; and as people began to travel and ideas to spread and students to learn, men became restless and impatient with their lot, and began to dream of a better world. They began to talk about liberty and equality; and many a person in one way or

another began to develop the ideas which culminated in Bacon and Locke.

It was about as long from the Peasant Revolt to Locke's Essay Concerning Human Understanding as from the First Thanksgiving down to our time. In the 309 years from 1381 to 1690 England had been expelled from France, the Protestants had revolted, the Counter-Reformation had taken place, and Elizabeth had defeated the Spanish Armada, Shakespeare had written his plays, Charles I had lost his head to Cromwell, the people of England had engineered a revolution, James II had fled, and the people had invited William and Mary to the throne. Louis Soleil was demonstrating the Divine Right of Kings in France; and elsewhere despots ruled the world.

They say today that "The British can take it"; but by 1700 the British were planning definitely not to take the world as it was any longer. At least this had been the resolution of many scientists, scholars, and reformers. Old ideas were going into the discard; new ideas were taking their place. Copernicus and Galileo had demonstrated a new astronomy that reversed all previous ideas of the world as the center of the universe. Harvey, by his discoveries, among which was that of the circulation of the blood, had shown that man was something quite different from what had formerly been believed. Leeuwenhoek by developing the microscope showed that man was living in a strange and new world of minute organisms and ob