"'Our country," I tried to explain, "has been brought to death's
door through sheer fear--from fear of the gods down to fear of
the police; and if you set up, in the name of freedom, the fear
of some other bogey, whatever it may be called; if you would
raise your victorious standard on the cowardice of the country by
means of downright oppression, then no true lover of the country
can bow to your decision."
"Is there any country, sir," pursued the history student, "where
submission to Government is not due to fear?"
"The freedom that exists in any country," I replied, "may be
measured by the extent of this reign of fear. Where its threat
is confined to those who would hurt or plunder, there the
Government may claim to have freed man from the violence of man.
But if fear is to regulate how people are to dress, where they
shall trade, or what they must eat, then is man's freedom of will
utterly ignored, and manhood destroyed at the root."
"Is not such coercion of the individual will seen in other
countries too?" continued the history student.
"Who denies it?" I exclaimed. "But in every country man has
destroyed himself to the extent that he has permitted slavery to
flourish.
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