other men's labor but who came here to carve out a new State in America
literally by the sweat of their brows. Also they consciously founded it
upon the basis of individual freedom and responsibility as proclaimed
and enforced by the precepts of the Christian-Jewish religion and by the
English Common Law. It is upon this foundation that they built their
success. Upon this same basis their descendants and successors to-day
weigh, measure and estimate that which is new in thought or invention
whether "native" or "foreign-born." And they have weighed Socialism in
this American balance and found it wanting.

But they brought with them neither certain loathsome diseases nor
Socialism. All of these are likewise the results of immorality--_moral_
and _political_--and of a type of decadent civilization still prevalent
on the Continent of Europe and at that time threatening to gain a
foothold even in England. It was this last-named threat from which the
founders of the American nation were wise and energetic enough to
escape, even though their escape meant going into the hardships of an
unknown and almost uninhabited wilderness.

Socialism is not only essentially un-American, but it is essentially
undemocratic. A democracy means a government by public opinion, and this
opinion is the result of the co-operative impulse or community feeling
of the people of a free country--a people who are given the opportunity
to think for themselves, and are not thought for by a divinely
constituted government. As Thomas Jefferson maintained, liberty is not a
privilege granted by a government, but government is a responsibility
delegated to its officers by the people. "On this distinction hangs all
the philosophy of democracy."[5] The people must decide questions for
themselves and make their common will known through the representative
organs of a government which is after all only the instrument intended