“THE world’s best hope,” Thomas Jefferson called our country, early in its life.

As we celebrate another Independence day, we shall do less than our duty if we fail to give some thought to the full meaning of the Fourth of July, and the signing of our Declaration of Independence.

The men who signed that great document shared a new thought, a new idea among the peoples of earth; new in the sense that it was accompanied by the determination and the plan, to bring it to reality.

It was briefly, a single thought, a single great desire, to form a society based upon a policy of maximum personal liberty under the law.

Accompanying this thought, was that also of a government of limited powers, and a consequent opportunity for all peoples to make their own way in life.

Those first Americans passionately sought freedom from intolerance, freedom from unjust accusation, freedom of thought, and freedom of opinion . . . the “freedom of the untrammeled mind.”

Our land has faced great tests, the Revolution, the Civil War, the World Wars. It faces another one, the threat of Soviet communism.

But, there is perhaps one even deadlier to the American idea:

The development of the great centralized state, accompanied by a growing intolerance of threats to it, and its power. It breeds intolerance.

So preoccupied have we become in recent years, that we are overlooking another danger. We fail to perceive that, as Lincoln said, if our country ever falls, it will be from within. [President Abraham Lincoln]

We ignore the dangers of creeping intolerance and suspicion. We lose track of the American Vision.

And there is no more menacing course for us today.

We can face all outward threat; we can police our country within, so long as we hold to the American Vision.

An example in the recent news may illustrate this danger:

The other day, a Georgia congressman accused a justice of the Supreme court of treason, a terrible crime in any land . . . betrayal of country, and of friends, of kin and ideals. [Congressman W. M. “Don” Wheeler, D-GA]

The basis for this grave charge was Justice Douglas’ action in the atomic spies’ case. [For William O. Douglas’ stay of execution judgment on the Rosenberg espionage trial, Wheeler tried unsuccessfully to impeach him, also citing “contributive treason” for expressing his beliefs.]

One may question Justice Douglas’ judgment in this case, but where was the evidence of treason? A justice of the courts acting within the law, on the basis of his own judgment scarcely could be treason in a free land.

But, said the Georgia congressman, it was not only this alone, but the justice once had made a speech saying, “These days I see America identified more and more with material things, and less and less with spiritual standards. These days I see Americans drifting from the Christian faith, acting abroad as an arrogant, selfish, greedy nation . . .”

How far does it stretch American freedom to see treason in this expression of an individual opinion?

Can any man say this is a free land when it becomes treason thus to express one’s opinions?

Said one congressman, “If everybody were punished who shares those views, the population would be sadly depleted.” [Congressman Francis E. Walter (D-PA), an ardent anti-Communist]

In our confusion, caused by the threat of the centralized state, and the outward pressure of communism, we are losing our vision, we are accusing one another officially and publicly without due course of law, we are using suspicion as slander, and we are turning upon one another in fury, questioning motives, questioning thoughts and opinions, motives and ideals.

We are laying the groundwork for destruction of the American Vision.