Substitutes for Freedom – Sunday, July 02, 1944
July Fourth, as a day of annual commemoration, has come and gone, despite many crises and contrary influences, finding us still a liberty-loving people; and the uniting force of freedom has, in the providence of God, preserved us as a nation—notwithstanding the fact that in many places and in many philosophies one will find expressed the idea and belief that freedom is an element of weakness rather than an element of strength. But those who have proceeded on this false assumption have discovered that men who have tasted of the sweetness of liberty have more to fight for and more to live for than men who haven’t. However, despite this, throughout all the centuries all manner of substitutes for freedom have been proposed.
Ambitious leaders and aggressive peoples, times without number, have persuaded, deceived, cajoled—and have used force when these other methods have failed—to induce others to yield their freedom of action. And peoples and individuals have ofttimes been known, to exchange freedom for peace, freedom for plenty, freedom for the promise of security—freedom for everything conceivable—and they have all made bad bargains no matter what they got or how long they kept it—for freedom once yielded is bought back in costly ways. Ultimately, and sometimes after much wandering in the wilderness, nations and peoples come to the formula of freedom, having learned that neither a supposed efficiency nor a ready-made way of life is an adequate substitute for freedom, even though it attempts to anticipate every need and every want.
Knowing the weaknesses of men, knowing the errors of history, knowing the alleged inefficiency of democracy, knowing all the possible abuses of freedom, there yet remains the inevitable conclusion that no other formula leads to the lasting happiness or progress of men—all other schemes to the contrary notwithstanding, whatever their source and whatever their intent. Now the only reason for observing a national holiday is to commemorate and to renew faith in the ideals and principles which brought it into being, and the Fourth of July came into being with the declaration of a people as to their willingness to give, if necessary, all else they had for freedom. Many of them did give all they had, even as many are doing today. And the message of this July Fourth, and of all those past and yet to come, is this: that there are no acceptable substitutes for freedom.
Heard over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System, from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, July 2, 1944. Copyright – 1944.
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July 02, 1944
Broadcast Number 0,776