IV. Civil Liberties

Before Pearl Harbor, many thoughtful persons believed that civil liberty in this country could not survive our participation in another world war. Today, civil liberty enjoys a vitality which even the optimist had hardly dared hope for. There are several reasons for this.First, since the last World War the American people have become “civil liberty conscious.” That war found us totally unprepared to deal with our sudden problems affecting civil liberty. Our legislatures had no experience in drafting, or our executive officers in enforcing, emergency restrictions upon free speech and press. Our trial courts faced new and difficult civil liberty questions with no established principles, no relevant Supreme Court decisions, to guide them. Since that time, the Supreme Court, in nearly a score of important decisions, has interpreted and strengthened our constitutional civil liberties. As a nation we are wiser; the costly mistakes of the last war have been thoroughly aired, and there is a healthy intention that they shall not be repeated.Second, the complete suppression of civil liberty in Axis-controlled countries has been a shocking and impressive object-lesson. We are forced to consider whether the witch-hunter and the “patrioteer” who would arbitrarily suppress minority opinion may not have much in common with the Nazi.