THE ORARCH
No. 11
SEP 1940
Subscription $1 a year, 50¢ for 6 months. For discussion groups, each additional copy per month above the first fully paid year's subscription, 25¢ per year.
Issued by the Boston Liberty Group.
Contributions of news or articles are welcomed.
"GRANT TO OTHERS ALL RIGHTS YOU WOULD HAVE OTHERS GRANT TO YOU."
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EXCUSE IT, PLEASE!
The progress in this country of what amounts to incipient dictatorship has been rapid in the last couple of months, and it is hard to tell how long it will be actually possible to continue getting out The Orarch. The doctrines of the Declaration of Independence were treated as
seditions in 1917, and it appears to be pretty much the same way again. (After all it must be remembered that the Declaration of Independence was an
anti-British document, such as could only have been gotten out―so
certain present-day "patriots" would have us believe―by Nazi
fifth-columnists.)
The Orarch will continue to attempt getting its issues out as regularly as possible under the circumstances, but a certain amount of irregularity is unavoidable. For unavoidable reasons―partly connected with our efforts to readjust to the new circumstances―the August issue was skipped . We cannot guarantee, as things are, that this will not happen again. But we intend to
try our best, and we hope to be able to give each yearly subscriber twelve issues for his subscription, and continue to stand for American individual rights through a period when rights are
as scarce as bat's teeth.
Our readers can concentrate, if they wish, in keeping The Orarch going; in fact,
things may depend largely on the readers' cooperation. If you wish to help us, please get in touch with the agent through whom
you have been getting our papers. If you are one of those readers who have received the Orarch otherwise than through one of our agents, opportunity
to help may possibly be afforded you at some time in the near future.
Articles, news, duplication, distribution, are all of them matters in which The Orarch may need its readers' aid to keep on going.
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DRAFT PASSES
A very long step down the road to war was taken when, on
September 11, a conscription law was put into effect―the first time such a thing was ever attempted in America.
Twice before has military conscription been imposed upon the people of America―both times during wartime―and both
with the idea of compulsion proved so alien to American continuities that
serious draft riots took place, and the draft riots of 1863 in New York and Detroit,
and those of 1917 in Boston, might be something for militarists to think about.
It is told that once, during the War for Independence, the British had succeeded in definitely subduing the
entire colony of South Carolina, to the point where they were able to become confident of the loyalty of the inhabitants.
Then conscription was attempted in South Carolina, and a new revolt started against it, thus enabling South Carolina―and the entire South―to regain its independence. Something over a year later, the British army that had made the mistake of starting the draft in South Carolina, was forced to surrender at
Yorktown.
As far as recorded history goes, the first known instance of a conscripted army was the one assembled by the Persian despot
Xerxes to invade Greece, in the year 480 B.C.
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DID YOU KNOW THAT
In modern Germany and Italy, a strict and nation-wide "closed-shop" is the universal rule, in both of these nations, no one is allowed to work at anything without joining the one big national labor union, which has total monopoly of the entire field, no rivals or competitors to it being permitted.
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CAMPAIGNING
The political campaign is ambling along, the scrap being between two candidates who appear to agree on most major policies. Both candidates appear to be anxious to subordinate this entire nation to
another country against whom it once declared its independence; both are
militaristically inclined, and the voter who wishes peace is left with no way of
expressing his opinion. Where is the "democracy" we are suppose to be defending, when we are deprived of the
chance to settle important issues by the ballot? And what choice, if any, is left to
a people deprived of this recourse?
In a number of states, all small party tickets have, under one pretense or another, or for no reason at all, been ruled off the ballot.
Generally, the American primary system makes it possible for minority candidates to have their try at Republican or Democratic nomination, with about the same
chance at succeeding as they would have had of getting elected on a minority ticket at a final election, and without giving up any principles whatever or bidding for the
support of political machines. Consequently, there is, in such an election machinery, no real
need of small party tickets; nevertheless, we are glad to be able to state that the Superior Court in Massachusetts
restored the small party tickets to the state ballots.
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THE SIXTH COLUMN
A real menace to the liberties of America's people is what has been, in some circles,
named the sixth column"
This consists of those hysteria-mongers who, under guise of emergency, are seeking to destroy the free expression of opinion by the liberal
use of such smear epithets as "un-American" or "fifth column." One definition given of the sixth column is "anyone who believes there is a fifth
column."
Sixth columnists are usually rooting for some particular foreign nation, and are therefore cocking to wipe out American
independence in favor of their favorite country. They usually demand that we
take the choice of having our liberties wiped out by them or by the opposing
side, generally intimating that they are the lesser of two evils and that there is no other choice. In other words, they themselves are acting the role of "fifth columnist" that they denounce so much.
The fight of libertarians must be to restore the liberties that our sixth-columnists are taking from us.
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