886 T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S perhaps, than the writer was conscious of. The editorial quotes a portion of another editorial from the “ Kansas City Star.” We wish space would permit us to print it in full, hut we earnestly plead with you to read and thoughtfully ponder the excerpt given: They have buried their dead in Illinois, and American civilization is compos ing its face to that bland expression that has come to be its main reliance against all questioning, all charges and all doubts. But questioning and doubt are not buried. They can neither be shot to death nor assured by that smooth countenance of society through whose hasty make-up show the scars and ulcers of a raging disease. Americans must answer the question, What of America? It is being asked today all over this broad continent; asked by Americans; asked in shame, humiliation and fear. Their country, their democracy, their laws, institutions and civilization are under indictment and the indictment goes unanswered. Obedience to law is liberty. So stands it written over the door of our courthouses. Can Americans read that solemn injunction and fail to acknowl edge to themselves that tested by it there is no liberty in America? There is no liberty where there is no law. There is no liberty where there is no protection for life or property. There is no liberty where there is no respect for human rights, where justice cannot be invoked both for the security of society and the punishment of its enemies. What of America?” . Rich, luxury-loving, money-grubbing, politically corrupt^; lawless America. Land of liberty, land of sacrifice, land of soldier dead, of patriot devotion, of patriot ideals sealed on so many heroic fields, watched over now by no spirit of America, but only by the cold, inanimate monuments that are America’s last remaining sentinels. The most lawless country in the world. A country of universal cynicism, skepticism and inhuman materialism. A country that raises a stately memorial _ to Abraham Lincoln and forgets or openly jeers at his teaching. A country where class hates class'and class arms against class, shooting and lynching and burning and dynamiting while the law looks on and the public is so indifferent that it even looks away. A country that throws open its gates to alien criminal and alien lunatic, to anarchist, bomber and hired assassin, and where few Amer- icans are born, few vote and few lead. What of America? 1 , . . What of its liberty and laws, its beliefs, faiths, sobriety and gravity of thought and action that were the America of old? If this republic could not endure half slave and half free, can it endure half law abiding and half lawless. Is there no leadership left to this land, on which so much of the last hope of humanity is fixed, to point out the course it is traveling and to call upon it with the voice of a Washington or a Lincoln or a Roosevelt to stay? What of America? No more solemn words of warning have ever come from human pen to the God-loving, God-fearing people of our beloved country than these. Who is to hlame for this condition? Had our Christian schools and churches been faithful to their trust could these words have been truthfully written1$ Nay, verily. Trace it all back to its source and find lawless pro fessors and lawless preachers violating their sacred vows, denying the author- LET US ALL JOIN HANDS
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