By Thomas F. Schwartz
The self-evident truths contained in the Declaration of Independence endowing individuals with inalienable rights were threatened by forces abroad and at home. Hoover acknowledges that democratic republics existed in various forms throughout history. What made the American Revolution unique was the pledge of protecting individual rights. “Revolutions of political independence of nations had happened often before in history, but never before had the ideal been promulgated that every man had rights solely from his Creator, rights that even the government could not infringe upon. Herein was a double revolution—a revolution against despotism whether at home or abroad.” Human liberty, according to Hoover, was the basis for American success for individuals and for the nation leading to being “better clothed, better fed, better housed, [and having] more leisure. Above all, men and women have had more self-respect.”
Americans “have given their lives on a hundred battlefields to hold these liberties.” Hoover recounts the cost of fighting World War I in blood and treasure as well as the instability of world economies and political systems in its aftermath. This led Hoover to declare, “From these strains liberty is under attack all over the entire world. It has already fallen in countries holding five hundred million of human beings. Losing confidence in themselves whole nations have surrendered their liberties to dictators. It is a time of discouragement and disillusion in which with a sort of slave psychology men would rather be safe than free. And it has turned out they are not safe. Under despotism theirs is a life of fear and coercion. There is no security of life or property. Speech and opinion, radios, universities, and press are strangled.”
By 1935, Adolf Hitler had taken control of Germany and began his ruthless centralization of power and persecution of Jews. Mussolini and his Fascist regime threatened to invade Ethiopia as part of Italian expansionist ambitions. Stalin’s Soviet government sent millions to the gulags and ordered deadly purges within the military and government. And Japan continued repression within Manchuria. Hoover had good reason to be worried.
“Even in America, where liberty first blazed brightest and by its glow shed light on all the world, it is now questioned and attacked from both home and abroad. Our safety from these attacks upon American principles and American institutions lies in holding fast to the fundamentals of the great Constitutional charter of our liberties. That is no mere legalistic parchment. It is an immortal expression of the spirit of men who would be forever free. It is the invisible sentinel which guards the door of every home from the invasion of coercion, intimidation, and fear.”
Hoover was not blind to the imperfections and in equities within American society. “There are many who suffer. Humanity is not perfect. But overall, the redemption of those who suffer and the cure of injustice have their only hope in the preservation of these liberties.” While “we realize that life is different in 1935 from 1776 . . . the functions of government must always be expanded to restrain the strong and protect the weak. That is the preservation of liberty itself.” Protecting liberty at home makes America a beacon of light in an increasingly dark world. “The Fourth of July, amid a threatened world should bring rededication to the proposition that the freedom won for men shall not be dimmed in America, nor shall this light to the world be extinguished.”