The Safety of the People

Admiral Ben Moreell reminds us of Cicero's observation that the safety of the people depends upon their knowing and observing the Higher Law.

In light of the turmoil and chaos which now enmesh our nation, at home and abroad, and the conse­quent bewilderment of our people, it is important to review our poli­cies and practices over the past half century to determine, if we can, the causes of the current con­fusion.Such principles are made by no human hands.

Starting practically “from scratch,” we became, in little over a century, the greatest nation in recorded history in terms of spir­itual stature, individual freedom, material productivity, cultural progress, biblical charity, and the security of our citizens and their property.

But, as we prospered, we lost sight of the fact that the blessings we enjoyed are not self-perpetua­ting, that they are premised on certain spiritual and cultural con­ditions which this generation did not create, which we inherited, and which we are losing! We are consuming our capital! That is the surest road to bankruptcy in business. And I am just as sure that our national well-being can­not outlast the current exhaustion of our spiritual and cultural cap­ital!

In his classic work, De Legibus, Cicero, greatest of Rome’s jurists and philosophers in the law, set forth this proposition:

“The safety of the people shall be the Highest Law.”

That dictum stemmed from the concept that there is a Higher or Natural Law which transcends all man-made law. The idea originated with the ancient Greeks, was elab­orated by Aristotle, and later adopted by the Stoics from whom it was taken over by Cicero and incorporated into the Roman law.

It was accepted by our Found­ing Fathers for inclusion in the Declaration of Independence, as evidenced by their avowed reliance on “the laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” as sanction for their claim to that “separate and equal station — among the powers of the earth” to which a people is entitled when it becomes neces­sary — “to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.”

Professor Edward S. Corwin, noted scholar and teacher of juris­prudence, in his essay, “The ‘High­er Law’ Background of American Constitutional Law,” wrote:

There are… certain principles of right and justice which are entitled to prevail of their own intrinsic ex­cellence, altogether regardless of the attitude of those who wield the phy­sical resources of the community. Such principles were made by no hu­man hands…. They are external to all will as such and interpenetrate all reason as such. They are eternal and immutable. In relation to such principles, human laws are… merely a record or transcript, and their enactment an act not of will or power but one of discovery and declaration.

Later, with respect to the Ninth Amendment of the Constitution, which validates those rights of the people which are not specific­ally enumerated, he wrote:

Such rights… owe nothing to their recognition in the Constitution. Such recognition was necessary if the Constitution was to be regarded as complete.

Thus the legality of the Constitu­tion, its supremacy, and its claim to be worshiped, alike find common standing-ground on the belief in a law superior to human governors.

That concept was endorsed by the late President Hoover in his address to the 1956 Republican National Convention. He said:

Those great documents of 180 years ago from our Founding Fathers must still be the foundation of our American way of life.

I have faith that there are prin­ciples which neither communism, nor socialism, nor neutralism, nor other evil ideas, nor even the march of time, can defeat. Those truths came into the world along with the shoot­ing stars of which worlds are made. They are as inevitable as the existence of the Supreme Being, the forces of gravity, and the ceaseless struggle of mankind to be free.

Limits for Man-Made Law

Those “principles of right and justice” fix the limits within which man-made law must function if we are to avoid doing violence to the higher law of Nature.

The Declaration defined those limits as follows:

We hold these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalien­able rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap­piness; that to secure those rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and to institute new government….

The preliminary drafts of the Declaration and contemporary doc­uments make clear that the phrase “all men are created equal” was intended to denote equality before God and before the law, not an impossible equality of natural tal­ents and consequent equality of material possessions. Similarly, it was intended that all men should be free to pursue happiness, the responsibility for catching up with it remaining with the pursuer. Happiness, per se, is not a natural right but something to be earned by individual effort, a concept which differs materially from that of “The Great Society” zealots who now steer our Ship of State.

Those basic principles were to establish the framework for a “government of laws and not of men.” Our Central Government was to be one of the strictly limited powers, specified in a written con­stitution. Furthermore, those pow­ers were to be augmented, ex­tended, eliminated, reduced, or re­distributed only by the procedures prescribed in the Constitution it­self, not by judicial interpretation, legislative mandate, executive de­cree, nor by arbitrary seizure which has no legislative sanction but is based on the theory that certain undefined powers inhere naturally in the presidency. These devices have been used in recent years by power-hungry and impatient government officialsAll of these devices have been used in recent years by power-hungry and impatient government officials to rationalize their violations of con­stitutional prohibitions and limita­tion on their authority.

The texts of the Declaration and the Constitution, the debates in the Constitutional Convention, in the Congress and in the state legislatures, as well as contempo­rary records, notably the sermons of the colonial clergy, indicate general agreement that, broadly speaking, the functions of the Central Government should be lim­ited to the following:

1. Protection of the citizens’ lives, limbs, liberties, and livelihoods, that is, their honestly acquired property, against aggression from without and internal dis­order;

2. Dispensation of equal justice under law; and

3. Keeping the records incident thereto.

Other than these, the people were to be free to pursue their own interests, provided this did not lead them to trespass on the rights of others.

It was held that such limitations on government powers could be effective only in a social order where there is a generally prevail­ing concept of the nature of the universe and how it is ordered, and the nature of man and his place in that universe; that con­cept being defined as follows:

1. Man has inherent and inalien­able rights, bestowed on him by God, which are in conform­ity with universally valid and eternal moral laws;

2. All just government powers are derived from the citizens by voluntary delegation;

3. To avoid trespassing on the in­dividual’s rights, there must be

4. Aa free market for goods, serv­ices, and ideas, into which gov­ernment must not intrude ex­cept to protect those rights; and

5. For every natural right, there are collateral responsibilities and moral duties, imposed on the individual, to make his con­duct conform to the code set forth in such stern admonitions as The Ten Commandments, The Sermon on the Mount, and The Golden Rule.

On this foundation, our people erected the structure of a great social order which, until recent decades, stood as a beacon of hope for the future of all mankind.

Squandering Our Legacy

How well have we managed this heritage? I believe my generation has squandered its legacy. We have permitted the superstructure of this citadel of freedom to be rav­aged and its foundations eroded to the point where there is dan­ger of total collapse.

Our intense pursuit of profit and pleasure left little time or in­clination to reflect on the dismal records of some great civilizations of the past, best exemplified by the tragic decline and fall of the Roman Empire. This debacle re­sulted when “the safety of the people” was no longer vested in obedience to “the Highest Law” but had given way to ruthless competition for political or eco­nomic power, an essential feature of which was corruption of the people by ever-increasing govern­ment largesse in the form of food, clothing, shelter, entertainment, “bread and circuses.” These were the prototypes of our present-day multifaceted “war on poverty,” publicly-financed stadiums, play­grounds, recreation areas, thea­tersAll of us must share the blame for this betrayal of our trust., cultural centers, and a myr­iad of other “Great Society” sub­ventions.

All of us must share the blame for this betrayal of our trust. Several years ago in a public ad­dress, I reproached our national legislators for their seduction of the people by government “hand­outs.” I received a letter from a prominent Senator, a friend of long standing, in which he said, “Don’t be too hard on us. We give you the kind of government you demand — or will tolerate.”

Over the past fifty years, we have propagated a child-like faith in the competence of government to achieve any kind of material, economic, social, or moral pur­pose. Implementing this faith we have stood by, meekly, while gov­ernment seized authority at an ever-increasing pace, centralizing it in Washington, where it would be shielded from the scrutiny of those from whom it had been taken; and this is always done under the pretext that it is solely for the good of the people!

But even more destructive is the fact that, as government functions today, decisions on matters of vital import to the security and well­being of our nation are most frequently taken in light of their probable political effects, rather than being based on purely eco­nomic, social, or national security considerations.

It has been said that the people never give up their liberties except under some delusion. In this case the delusion is that government which, after all, is operated by ordinary mortals like you and me, not by gods or supermen, has some superior competence in the realm of economics, some mysteri­ous magic multiplier of wealth, some power to open the doors to a vast store of economic goods which can be had without working for them, merely by voting for them!

Few of us are completely im­mune to such delusions, or to the human passions which they arouse: apathy, fear, greed, and violence. But those who see the terminus of this “devil’s highway” are duty bound to sound the alarm.

Let us look briefly at some areas where we have departed from our time-tested principles, and thus jeopardized “the safety of the people.”

The Evils of Inflation

Perhaps most obvious is the debauchery of our currency. Largely as the result of profligate spending and shiftless fiscal and monetary policies, at home and abroad, our gold reserve, intended to ensure national solvency and to promote dynamic economic equi­librium, has been depleted to the point where our government re­sorts to frantic maneuvers in the international money marts to avoid devaluation of the dollar.

Our maudlin foreign aid pro­grams have served principally to buttress unstable authoritarian and socialist governments, to line the pockets of dictators and their henchmen, and to subsidize cut­throat foreign competition with our own industries.

Our public debt is at an all-time high and increases each year. In addition, there are hidden obliga­tions accumulated under the social security and government retire­ment systems, and as guarantees of mortgages and other indebted­ness, which amount to hundreds of billions, the total of Central Gov­ernment liabilities alone having been estimated recently at 11/2 trillion dollars, that is, $1,500 bil­lions, or $7,500.00 for every man, woman, and child in the nation!

The debts of states, subordinate units of government, and public “authorities,” as well as private indebtedness have kept pace with that of the Central Government. Our nation is mortgaged to the hilt! And the process continues. Unbalanced national budgets have become a way of life. During the past five years, the National Bud­get has averaged an annual deficit of $6.3 billion. Since 1939 infla­tion has reduced the purchasing power of our dollar to about 43 cents, with commensurate de­creases in purchasing power of the peoples’ savings accounts, pen­sions, insurance policies, annuities, and other fixed income invest­ments.

Increases in the costs of replac­ing obsolete industrial equipment and for new equipment to expand production reflect the current in­flation. These, together with our subsidization of foreign indus­tries, have impaired our ability to compete in the world’s markets, including even those of our own country, and thus to provide de­cent jobs for a rapidly growing working population.

The culprit that creates dollars out of thin air and pumps them into our economic bloodstream is our own out-of-bounds govern­ment. During the past five years, our purchasing media (currency and checking accounts) have in­creased at an annual rate of more than 6 percent, the highest for any such period since World War II. And the rate is increasing, the rate during the past year is 8.9 per cent.

But the harsh realities of pol­itics will not permit the government to admit its guilt. So government looks for a scapegoat, preferably one who will be a politically profit­able whipping boy. In this case, it is private industry, whose man­agers have tried earnestly to pro­tect their owners’ properties against inflationary erosions by proposing modest increases in the prices of their products.

The government propaganda machine is then turned on full-force in an effort to delude our people into believing that private industry is not the unfortunate victim of inflation but is the greedy villain who caused it!

Initially, inflation weighs most heavily on the thrifty citizens who, largely through fixed income in­vestments, have tried to provide a competence for their old age or security for their loved ones. But, eventually, it involves the entire nation. The resultant chaos can be ended only by dictatorship and ruthless suppression of the rights of the people. A dictator has been defined as the receiver for a na­tion gone bankrupt!

I have dwelt at some length on this subject because debauchery of the currency is so pervasive that, ultimately, no one can entirely escape its destructive effects. Our government, whose fiscal and monetary policies and practices in­duce inflation, stands guilty of flagrant violation of the Highest Law — thus jeopardizing the safe­ty of the people!

The Crisis of Morals

Not unrelated to the debauchery of our currency is the national crisis of morals and moral courage.

Our national crime rates, not­ably crimes of violence, are sky­rocketing, as are the rates of di­vorce, juvenile delinquency, ille­gitimate births, and family deser­tions. There are all-too-frequent shreds of evidence of corruption in high places in public and private life. We are demoralized by an apa­thetic acceptance of low standards of conduct of prominent persons and of the general public; an in­creasing tolerance of openly flaunt­ed pornography in the theater, books, periodicals, recordings, movies, and television; the deteri­oration of family life; derision of religion and spiritual values; and downgrading of the individual as a responsible creature of God, sovereign in his natural rights, having personal worth and dignity, deserving of respect because he is self-respecting and respectable.Our situation is more precarious because we do not receive support from those to whom we look for help.

Our situation is more precarious because we do not receive support from those to whom we look for help. We urge people to go back to church; but there they fre­quently find that the forces which have undermined our traditional beliefs have infected the very source of those beliefs, the church itself!

Many of our prominent and ar­ticulate churchmen and some of our most influential church bodies favor socialization of our national life and urge that more power is placed in the hands of govern­ment. Others have sought to make the churches over into a political force to put pressure on legis­lators. Many to whom we look for guidance out of the morass of ma­terialism and state-imposed hu­manism appear to have “made a deal” for a partnership between God and Caesar, with God cast in the role of a very junior partner.

Others assert with the assur­ance born of ignorance that “God is dead, and man has inherited his throne”…. weak, witless, sin­ful man, frequently unable to re­solve the problems of his own small household, but supremely confident of his competence to plan and direct the orderly func­tioning of the Cosmos!

Effective Leadership Stems from the Power of Example

I have long believed that per­sonal example is the most power­ful element of effective leadership, for good or for evil. A fair read­ing of the record leads to the con­clusion that, in its role of Robin Hood, our giant government has provided the worst kind of moral leadership for our people. Robin Hood may have been impelled by the most altruistic of motives —but he was still a thief! Today the “powers that be” neatly gloss over the fact that when people vote for legislators who promise them “goodies” at the expense of those who worked to produce them, they become partners with gov­ernment in thievery! More’s the pity that such legalized larceny has the sanction of many high government officials who urge the voters to “come and get it!”

Many politicians now run for office on the platform, “I can get more from the government for you.” But they do not mention what government must first take from you and others who produced the wealth. President Johnson had at least the virtue of frankness when he stated, “We are going to take from those who have and give it to the have-nots.”

In a recent detailed study of socialist Sweden, commenting on public housing, the author wrote: “Here, as well as in other spheres, personal corruption and indiffer­ence to laws are the results of state intervention in the function­ing of the free market economy.”

Civil Rights and Moral Wrongs

Our social order is subjected to massive stress as the government seeks to impose legal curbs on a freedom to use or dispose of one’s property and the right to choose one’s, associates. Justifying the means they propose by the ends they seek, public officials and prom­inent private citizens, including many of our clergy, encourage a violation of those laws which one does not like, as well as civil dis­obedience merely for its nuisance value, and illegal seizures of pri­vate property. All such acts con­stitute trespass on the rights of others and are “civil wrongs”! They point the way to anarchy and, ultimately, to dictatorship!

Our judiciary frequently shows excessive concern for the civil lib­erties of hardened criminals at the expense of the moral and legal rights of their innocent victims. Similar tolerance is displayed to­ward union officials who order or condone acts of violence on per­sons and property by their subor­dinates.Giant Government in Washington grows at the expense of state sovereignty and individual rights.

We appear to have reached the point where the only license we need for the perpetuation of civil wrongs on a law-abiding and peaceful citizenry or for the ob­struction of lawful commerce is willing to join a picket line and carry a placard with a legend which heaps abuse on those who have incurred our displeasure!

Giant Government in Washing­ton grows at the expense of state sovereignty and individual rights. The Central Government now owns more than 34 percent of the land area within the boundaries of the fifty states, it owns and operates more than 3,000 tax-free commercial activities in competi­tion with its own citizens, it dis­penses more than 25 percent of the national income, and it grows apace! Such massive intrusions into the affairs of the once sov­ereign states and of the people, many clearly in violation of the Constitution, impair economic freedom, discourage prudent ven­ture capital, impede the development of private enterprise, and com­promise the safety of the people.

We appear to be suffering a paralysis of will which saps our courage, moral and physical. We are being transmuted from a God-fearing, energetic, self-reliant, confident, and venturesome peo­ple, free and independent, into a nation of timid dependents, inse­cure, apprehensive, fearful of in­curring the displeasure and repri­sals of our political masters to whom we are told to look for food, clothing, shelter, medical care, ed­ucation, entertainment, and se­curity from the cradle to the grave. And to receive those boun­ties, we need only surrender control of our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor!

Our Foreign Policy

The emotions which paralyze our wills in domestic affairs have infected our courage and integrity when dealing with other nations. On the international scene, com­promise of principle, appeasement of blustering bullies, support of cruel oppressors, intervention in the internal affairs of friendly nations, and surrender to black­mail, mark our conduct. The moral principal is sacraficed on the alter of expediency to acheive the promise of a subious security.The moral principle is sacrificed on the altar of expediency to achieve the prom­ise of a dubious security. Any dictator who wishes to rub our nose in the dirt for political profit or personal pleasure does so with impunity, secure in the knowledge that when he is ready to trade we will buy him off with generous allocations of foreign aid.

Little wonder, then, that Khru­shchev was quoted as having re­marked on his return from his trip to America, “You spit in their faces and they smilingly wipe it away and say, ‘The dew is very heavy today.’”

In the Vietnam war, it appears that we are exerting every effort to avoid achieving a clear-cut vic­tory in order to induce the com­munists to come to the bargaining table where the first installment of a generous payoff, budgeted at one billion dollars, awaits them! While the arrogant aggressor is leisurely making up his mind, we continue pouring men and ma­terial into the venture! Here one must ask, “What’s wrong with a victory since victory is the only sure way to end both the aggres­sion and the drain on our human and material resources? And if victory is politically inexpedient why not withdraw and end the blood-letting and the waste?”

We are not respected by our enemies, by the so-called neutrals, nor by our professed friends. In spite of generous concessions in all areas, “Yankee Go Home” has become an international slogan. Unruly mobs, unrestricted by po­lice or other public authorities, attack our embassies, legations, consulates, libraries, and other in­stallations and menace the safety of our representatives.

To show our complete confidence in the honor of dictators who have repeatedly repudiated their treaty obligations, our government has proposed a long-range program for total disarmament of all na­tions, in which we are now taking the lead, unilaterally.

I am under no illusion. I know that a Jeremiah is without honor, especially in his own country, when the people become servile and in­sensitive to moral wrongs under the narcotic effects of a false prosperity, buttressed by massive gov­ernment seductions and propa­ganda. But those who feel, as I do, that the safety of the people is in jeopardy are morally bound to say so.

The Way Ahead

Is there a way ahead which will take us out of this morass? Is there a way to recover the sanity and balance which once marked our life? I am sure there is, if we are willing to pay the price. But it is not by resort to political legerdemain. It is by beating our way upstream, against the swift-running current, to those moral and spiritual values upon which this nation was built. We must be born again of the spirit!

I do not mean to imply that there are no problems peculiar to the economic and political levels of our national life. But if men are not right at the deeper level, in their understanding of the na­ture of the universe and man’s position therein, they can tinker with economic and political prob­lems from now until doomsday and still come up with the wrong answers.

It is a case of putting first things first and the very first thing is a rehabilitation of our basic moral principles. Such an effort on our part will call forth the support of cosmic sanction, for God intended men to be free. “The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time,” Jeffer­son observed. But we will need conviction, courage, tenacity, un­derstanding, humility, compassion and, above all, faith, to set in mo­tion what William James called “those tiny invisible, molecular moral forces which work from in­dividual to individual, creeping in through the crannies of the world like so many soft rootlets, or like the capillary oozing of water, but which, if you give them time, will rend the hardest monu­ments of man’s pride.”

That is the way! May our Father in Heaven endow us with wisdom, strength, and courage to follow it! Our forebears did so under more oppressive conditions than those we face. We can do it, too, provided only that we have the will! That is your challenge and your opportunity! I pray you will make this your post-graduate mis­sion and, if this be your resolve, that you will translate it into ac­tion that counts. St. James said: “Whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed.”