With Thanks to Francis Pharcellous Church

“DEAR MR WAY: I am 74 years old.
“Some of my White House friends say there is no Liberty.
“Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE CONSERVATIVE DAILY NEWS it’s so.’
“Please tell me the truth; is there a LIBERTY?
“HARRY REID.
“UNITED STATES SENATE.”

HARRY, your White House friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except in what they can control. They think that nothing can be which is not controllable by their little minds. All minds, Harry, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole truth and knowledge of liberty.

Yes, HARRY, there is Liberty. It exists as certainly as faith, reason, wisdom and devotion to honor exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Liberty. It would be as dreary as if there were only Harry Reid. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Liberty! You might as well not believe in life! You might get your papa to hire learned men to explain, but even if they did not produce it so you that could touch it, see it, smell it, hear it, or taste it, what would that prove? Nobody sees Liberty, but that is no sign that there is no Liberty. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men, and most especially those of power can see. Did you ever see faith reason, wisdom, or devotion to honor? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there, other than the results they produce. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world, Because of Liberty.

You may trample upon the Liberty of men.  You may bind every last man upon the earth in unbreakable chains.  You may make illegal all things even the act of breathing, but there is a veil covering the unseen eternal nature of Liberty which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men, congresses, and presidencies that ever lived, can tear from the heart of every man. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory which Liberty supplies.

Is Liberty real? Ah, HARRY, in all this world there is nothing else so real and abiding.

No Liberty! Thank God! It lives, and It lives forever. A thousand years from now, Harry, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, Liberty will continue to make glad the heart of mankind.