LAST DITCH OF DEMOCRACY - Majority Rights

inspection. Even Mr. William Bullitt began to have doubts as to the
humanity of Russian state administration.
Now admittin’ that I may have old fashioned views, admittin’ that I may
at this moment be speaking to an America that no longer exists, to a type
of American that is almost as extinct as the bison or buffalo, would it
occur to any of you that Mr. Welles might be inveighing against a
Germany that is no longer the country he visited? He said nothin’ about
the homestead reforms. There WAS the militarist Germany of the Kaiser,
there was the Germany of Mr. Stinnes and Thyssen, but there also IS the
Germany of the young fellows who now come down to Rapallo for
holidays. God knows they have probably earned ’em. No, no I have
NOT spoken of Germany in the past. I tried to speak of the Italy that I
live in. I tried to convey a knowledge of specific facts, which if not
sufficient to prove my particular estimate of the DIRECTION of Italy
were at least components that should have been taken into consideration
by those responsible for the U.S. relations with Italy.
In EVERY country there are two or more forces; one dispersive or
shiftless and, at least in a happy era, another constructive. ANY
constructive or positive idea is now labeled propaganda. There is an
enormous prejudice vs. what is called propaganda. Yet almost any valid
and serious statement IS propaganda in the best sense of the term, The
modern world has been fed narcotic. The deadly propaganda IS precisely
the shiftless, is precisely the stuff that has built up the prejudice against
ALL order, and all coherence.
It is the easiest propaganda to write, and to distribute. It does not have to
preach at all. It says nichivo, it says, what does it matter, it says let’s be
funny, let’s jitterbug. It is hard to be heard against it. Any tendency to
discount it, anybody who makes any attempt to withstand it, gets called
a blue nose. Liberty is not a right but a duty. Now what do you know
about Italians who can read that on a wall? Nothin’.