Jasper County Democrat, Volume 14, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 July 1911 — Liberty Is Essential to Growth and Development [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Liberty Is Essential to Growth and Development

, By Congressman E. D. CRUM* PACKER of Indiana

CHE Declaration of Independence proclaims that ALL men are created equal and are endowed with certain INALIENABLE rights and that it is the paramount duty of government to safeguard the citizens in the enjoyment of those rights.

There is a latitude of liberty that belongs to every citizen in virtue of his manhood that no power on earth can justly take from him. THIS LIBERTY IS ESSENTIAL TO HIS GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT AND TO THE FULFILLMENT OF THAT DESTINY WHICH IS APPOINTED TO HIM BY THE GOD WHO CREATED HIM. Government and laws and institutions are ordained for the PROTECTION of the citizen in those fundamental rights. It is as great a wrong for the government itself to INVADE those natural rights as it is for the assassin or the highwayman or a band of conspirators to do so. Those rights do not emanate from government, but it is the vital purpose of government to protect the citizen in their proper enjoyment. It is as great an OFFENSE against manhood and civilizatjpn for those rights to be INVADED or destroyed by a majority vote in a democracy as it is to .invade or destroy them by the edict of an ABSOLUTE MONARCH.