I'll take insecurity

Title

Language

English

Source

Panorama 4 (7) July 1939

Year

1939

Subject

Economic security

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

~Are you for security? I'LL TAKE INSECURITY EVERYONE, of course, likes security. You do. I do. We like to feel that someone reliable will look after us, no matter what happens. And if we lived in a country with complete economic security for its individual citizens, none of us would need to worry about saving or sickness, about losing our jobs or losing our youth. The omnipotent state would provide. Theoretically, we would all be safe and secure. That, as I see it, is the princi-, pal' lure which the autocratic, totalitarian states-Germany, Italy, Russia-hold out for the man in the street. "Trust in me," they say, "and you will be saved"-but the catch is that you have to trust blindly, at the risk of your owp neck. Ancient Rome under the tyrants was such a state. It denied liberties, but it was generous with "panem et circenses" -bread and circuses. The old Tammany Hall in New York copied the Roman mode. You voted as the boss said, and he provided you with jobs and picnics. JULY, 1939 In the modern dictator states you abdicate your f~eedom for something that looks like economic security. You work, parade, cheer, and raise your children according to strict party regulations. You like it-or else you go te jail, so you can't contaminate others with your heresy. You are never troubled by having to make a choice, because for you there is no choice. If you are a woman, and the dictator decides woman's place is in the home, you stay at home. If you are a man, and the dictator decides he would like to increase his territory, you shoulder a gun and march off to war. You may be killed, of course, but that merely saves the dictator the trouble of making good on his promise. of security for you. I won't deny that we h·ave a good deal of insecurity in America. We must look for work, struggle for advancement, save for emergency, fight for our rights. Many of us find the going hard. Wherever it is a case of every man for himself, the devil is 7 bound to catch up with some of the hindmost. But we are making advances. We are broadening the conception of security within the framework of our liberties and our democracy. And our very insecurity is an assurance that our liberties aren't dead, that a man can't be pulled off a job which is congenial to him and put to work at another at any wage the state may select. It means that we all can have a good try at making ourselves what we will. It means that within the grasp of all of us-men and women-is the chance to lead the life which seems most interesting and promising to us. It means that we can choose for ourselves whatever sphere of life we wish, regardless of birth, parentage, religion, or race--and that we can reach whatever station in life our health, talents, enthusiasm, and energy equip us for. And it also means that we, and not the state, are masters of our own destinies. Dangled before the eyes of the captive citizens of dictator states is the illusory sort of security which is the lot of a man in jail. A prisoner has a regular job, hasn't he? He eats three meals a day. He has a warm bed to sleep in, a roof over his head, and he knows that he isn't likely to be dispossessed for some time. He has nothing to worry about-and very little to live for. Call that security if you willbut, if you do, then, by heaven, give me insecurity! It's a price I, for one, am willing to pay for freedom.-H. JI. Kaltenborn, from The American Magazine. * * * 8 SONG OF THE SIREN? GENERAL DouGLAS MACARTHUR believes in two vital things affecting the Philippines: First, that the Philippines may be defended successfully from military and naval invasion; and second, that Japan has no serious intentions of converting the Philippines into a political or economic colony of hers. Among Americans, laymen as well as military experts, MacArthur's seems to be a lone voice. Filipinos there are who think that their Marshal's opinion should be censored by some sort of bureau against dangerous thoughts. Some call MacArthur's declaration as "the song of the siren" that will transform "us into beas·s." PANORAMA

pages

7-8

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