Liberty or Restriction

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jan 7, 1915

Liberty or Restriction

In his commencement address at Columbia University, June last, Pres. Nicholas Murray Butler, in deprecating the tendency of the times away from the true spirit of liberty, said:—

When this college was young, the word that rose oftenest and instinctively to the lips was liberty. . . . It meant freedom of conscience, of speech, and of the press; it meant participation in the acts of government and in the choice of governing agents. . . . But during the years that have passed we have moved far away from this view of what is important in life. There has grown up, not alone in America, but throughout the world, an astonishingly widespread belief in the value of regulation and restriction not only as a substitute for liberty, but directly in opposition to it. . . . Not liberty, but regulation and restriction are the watchwords of today. . . . The only logical and legitimate restriction upon liberty is that which is drawn from the like liberty of others. . . .

We had physical, mental, and spiritual regulation and restriction during the Dark Ages, and the world still suffers from it. The program of political religionists today would give the world another experience of the same kind, with its blasting and blighting effects. True liberty brings out the best there is in the race; but regulation and restriction stamp it out.