WHAT OUT OUR SCHOOL BOOKS?
by Hon. Nelson S. Dilworth / former State Senator, Riverside, Calif.
N i n e t y - t h r e e y e a r s ago our greatest American was speaking at the dedication of a memorial on the most significant battlefield of the great war between our states. There, Abraham Lincoln stated in clear, ringing words that our American youth had poured out their life’s blood in a crimson flood on that sacred soil so that govern ment of the people, by the people, and for the people should not perish from the earth. Our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution brought into being a new concept of liberty. Under the protection of these wise documents American manhood and womanhood have achieved new freedoms with great dignity of purpose. Today our American way of life is challenged from abroad by a ,great material force. This challenge comes not in the form of muskets and sabers. It comes not in serried ranks of marching feet but in books. The devotees of totalitarian government are prolific writers. Tens of millions of dollars flow every year into publishing houses from the profitable sale of totalitarian literature in these United States. The thing to be afraid of today in America is that we do not give an effective testimony to our youth of the value of American institutions and what they have cost in the history of our people. We should be afraid that communist material and socialist propaganda is not matched, answered, and exposed. If it isn’t our way of life here in the wonderland of the world will go by default, through a series of persistent half-truths and outright lies against the institutions originated by Americans that we should hold so dear. The greatest invention of the mind of man was the alphabet, that enabled him to write thoughts. By books you can learn better methods of farming. By books you can learn how to build a dam and harness a mighty river. By books you can learn how to make wise laws and govern a nation. By the Book of books you can learn God’s laws and His plans for men and receive the gift of Eternal Life with Him in the Land that is fairer than day. Even those who would destroy our freedom, and are trying to do so, recognize the power of books. They use
them to spread their deceit and falsehoods. Lenin and Stalin were prolific writers. Marx is only known and remembered by his books, perverted and false books, chief among them being a small one, the Communist Manifesto. American freedom as we know it today is challenged as never before and the challenge comes from a book, that small book, written a century ago by an embittered and unsuccessful man, known even to his friends as without normal affection even for his own family. Through the centuries since the invention of movable type and the printing press there has been one Book of all books that has been a best seller. But in recent decades year after year there is only one challenger, always the same, the Communist Manifesto. Our Declaration of Independence is a reverent docu ment based on expressed belief in God and faith in His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. At the same time we find that in his book, Karl Marx says, and I quote, “ Christian brotherly love has been tried for eighteen centuries and found wanting. I will found my movement on a more dynamic force, class antagonism.” This is the challenge the world faces today. This is the battle cry of the im patient conquerors of 800 millions of people abroad, as these same conquerors cast their envious eyes at our American prosperity and riches. And how shall we meet this challenge? We must meet it with the truth, the whole truth about America and our way of life and the sacrifices and struggles to achieve it. Yes, and at the proper time and age and after, and only after a thorough understanding of America, there must be explained clear ly the totalitarian form of government, the purges and police methods necessary to maintain it. The evils of Communism, the cruelties and degradation of soul and body must be clearly included. You can’t separate Com munism from materialistic atheism. Communists use it as a tool. From time to time we hear of those who contend loudly for academic freedom, for the privilege of the teacher to teach whatever he chooses. They assert that the schools should be open to all ideas and all sides of every question.
THE KING 'S BUSINESS
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