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THE ORARCH
No. 23                                             SEP 1941


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Issued by the Boston Liberty Group.

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"GRANT TO OTHERS ALL RIGHTS YOU WOULD HAVE OTHERS GRANT TO YOU."

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DECLARING AN UNDECLARED WAR

                Our President, after a numerous series of provocative acts intended (but without success) to stir up a declaration of war against America, finally cut the knot by going over the heads of the Congress and declaring an undeclared war.
                This may seem like a contradictory expression, but it is no more contradictory than the other subterfuges and technicalities by which the President has been regularly exceeding his constitutional authority in his march towards absolute individual power, which is his goal, and has been over since he got to Washington.
                It hardly seems to be too much of a coincidence that the dictator at whom "Franco De Llano" has been aiming all his missiles, received his absolute power one day after Roosevelt's first inauguration, and got into office not merely the same year as Roosevelt did (1933) but actually on Roosevelt's birthday.
                The excuse of "freedom of the seas" is a hoary one. It might as well be recognised that "freedom of the seas" cannot exist in wartime, and that the only way to protect it is not by piling into an orgy of human sacrifice, but by preventing wars. The President, in giving out his shooting orders without consulting anyone, is himself recognising that there is no such "freedom" in what he is pleased to designate as "defense waters"which, as he has not attempted to define it, might mean anywhere on earth. And, in any enent, our neutrality laws (which the administration wishes to nullify) were actually a recognition that America's rights to the seas had to be voluntarily abandoned at time in the interests of keeping out of war. But of what avail are laws as against somebody who is under the delusion that he is the only law?

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STIRRING RELIGIOUS ANTAGONISMS

                Lately some of our Interventionists have been accusing a prominent anti-Europeanist speaker of stirring religious antagonisms. The fact is that the shoe is really on the other foot. The religious issue has long been raised by sects which have desired America to go to war to avenge their co-religionists across the sea, and have quite openly advocated war in the name of their particular religion. These sects are also always ready to accuse anyone of fascism who attempts any criticism of their actions. 
                The spirit of America in this regard has been to give―and demand―tolerance of all opinions whatever. The sect that attempts to suppress, or to howl down its critics, is the one that is the enemy of American liberty.
                If it is indeed true that any sect, or national bloc, has been attempting to drag America into war for its own selfish interests outside of America, it is only fair that we should know of it. If they have ever raised the religious issue in their appeals for war, let us not accuse their critics of stirring up religious issues.
                Those who attempt to stop people from criticising some religious sect of today, are no better, and can no more speak for "freedom of religion," than those who, in our past, or in other countries, are persecuting opposing opinions.
                Free criticism of all sects, without exception, is essential to America; those who are not willing to concede this are the true enemies of American democracy.

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                "The way things are going, we will soon be in the war if we have any more radio addresses."
                (From a judicial opinion rendered in the Superior Court in Boston.)

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THE DRAFTEE'S PRAYER

The time is drawing very close
    When we must go to war;
So tell us, Lord, before we go,
    What we are fighting for?

Our homes and country are intact,
    And not one floating mine
Has come within a thousand miles
    Of this our firing line.

You'll find the lineup is the same 
    As in the other war.
He needn't bore you with details,
    You've heard them all before.

"Democracy must rule the world!"
    Is still our battle cry.
(Although, between ourselves, dear Lord,
    We really don't know why!)
             
P. H. Ryan, in the Boston Globe



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