of Governor Herbert R. O'Conor. 545

became a Nation. A time of emergency such as this is exactly the time when
we should redouble, our efforts to see to it that our people shall be given the
accurate knowledge upon which sound judgments are based, the opportunity
for discussion of the implications of that knowledge, and the freedom to make
their own decisions as a result of such discussion.

In war or in peace the democracy which thinks it must for an emergency
assume dictatorial control over its people's minds is doing more than merely
aping a dictatorship for an emergency. It is toying with a dynamite which is
deadly to a democracy at any time, it is weakening democracy's most im-
portant strength, -the intelligence, will, and good judgment of its people, and—
worst of all, in the long run—it is making a strategic blunder of first magni-
tude in the greatest of all wars.

We have unbounded confidence in the courage and the ultimate fighting
power of our people in battles which they may enter on land, on sea, or in the
air. To have a similar confidence in their abilities to direct their own thinking
and render their own decisions in accordance with their consciences, we must
continue to supply them with the indispensable elements of a free people's
thinking and feeling, through freedom of publication, freedom of assembly,
freedom of speech, freedom of education and freedom of worship.

The truth makes men free, and freedom makes them strong. This is the
principle which the world's current enemies of freedom must learn in due time,
or perish.

Our greatest danger in the present world crisis is our complacency on the
one hand, and the confusion of the public mind on the other. Thoughtful and
informed opinion has long since been forced to realize the vital danger by which
this Nation is confronted. Yet all too many of our people fail in that realiza-
tion. A large proportion of those so failing to realize are in that state be-
cause they have not informed themselves; others have allowed themselves to
be pulled away from the larger considerations because of racial or other
prejudices; while hundreds of thousands have been misled.

Taking advantage of that condition in the public mind, the activities of the
Fifth Columnists have run rampant throughout the Country during the past
two years. Those activities have been promoted by thousands who are com-
pletely unware of the aid they have been giving to the enemies of their
Country. The doing of the work of a Fifth Columnist does not depend upon
a conscious attachment to, or approval of, the plans of Hitler. Only the key
man need have such attachment. The job of a key man, in order to create
the confusion designed, is merely to find fault; to bring about and emphasize
distracting discussion.

Any appealing subject will do. It may be economic, political, racial,
religious or social. This method of causing disunion and delay has been, and
still is being carried on throughout the land on a gigantic scale. The leaders
of that delaying program are not confined to any class, they operate from
high places as well as low.

In this crisis it must be ever emphasized and kept in mind that the inter-
national gangsterism which has been so successfully prosecuted by the Nazi