Seabury Warns World of Hitler

The meeting which brings us together is no ordinary occasion. We have discussed a momentous issue; the Cause of Civilization against Hitlerism.

What, then, is civilization?

Generally, we recognize it as an advanced stage of social development and of the forces in society which make for human progress.

As history attests, civilization springs from a background of tradition and knowledge which have inculcated among those who live within the zone of its influence the habits of order and the observance of the laws of reason and secures to them the guarantees of freedom.

Multiple factors have entered into its creation; myriad are the benefits to mankind which flow from its development.

Western civilization, for example, has created a social consciousness that ## individual liberty, the freedom to live, to work, to think, to speak, to write and to publish, and the freedom to give the fullest expression to human personality.

It builds its development upon laws embodied in the customs and habits of the people and in the deals visioned by a moral sense which makes men sensitive of the rights of others and conscious of their obligations to one another.

THE TWO GREATEST EVILS

The two factors which have most impeded the march of civilization–the two greatest evils which man through the ages has inflicted upon his fellows–are religious persecution and war.

These are the twin plagues which the peace, happiness and future development of mankind require shall be extinguished.

Disregard our social inheritance. renounce the principles of liberty and freedom which civilization has attained, and you break the bonds which hold civilization together and usher in an era of savagery and barbarism.

Strong as our civilization is, the lesson of history, as well as recent events, admonish us that civilization has in its elements of uncertainty and insecurity. It cannot exist unless the individuals and states within the zone of its influence recognize their dependence upon the observance of rules that are necessary for the orderly development of social life.

Just as no individual can disregard the other members of the community in which he lives, so no civilized state can disregard the other states in the world of which both are a part.

Those interested in the cause of civilization should beware of the advance of barbarism, manifesting its approach through religious persecution and race hatred.

Yet these are the banners under which Hitlerism is seeking to make its advance.

A great state and the rule over a great people have been seized by a tyrant whose grip is as firm as his policies are wicked.

OPPRESSION AND CRUELTY

These policies have manifested themselves in unspeakable oppressions and acts of cruelty. They threaten not only the extermination of the liberty of those who live under his rule, but the liberty, integrity and independence of neighboring states.

In the addresses which have been made this evening you have heard the testimony of witnesses who represent different schools of thought, and who, in various spheres of action, are the accredited leaders of those for whom they have assumed to speak. Collectively, these witnesses voice not only the cultural, political, academic and religious views which are basic in our civilization, but they have enunciated what I verily believe to be the true verdict of American public opinion.

The views thus expressed have not dealt with prophecy, but with facts, The facts have disclosed what has happened in Germany and the outrages which have been perpetrated during one year of the Hitler regime.

The witnesses you have heard tonight have detailed events, the occurrence of which has shocked the moral sense of mankind and which are peculiarly distressing to those of us who cherish the American ideal, because these events strike at the basic principles which underlie human freedom.

Not only do these events distress us in this respect, but they reveal the commission of cruelties and of outrages upon those who are near and dear to a group of our own citizenship–a group which have contributed much to the up-building of our institutions and constitute an element in our country whom we delight to acknowledge as our partners in American citizenship.

The hideousness of the events, their promise of further oppressions and their menacing character, threatening the very foundations upon which Western civilization rests, justly alarm all those who are interested in the advancement of that civilization and are opposed to its being disrupted by the precipitation of another fiery ordeal of battle which these Hitler tactics, if not prevented, foreshadow.

These events thus create the issue upon the determination of which momentous consequences depend, and involve no other question than the Cause of Civilization Against Hitlerism.

Other states may in their present stage of development have extended their state powers unduly over the consciences and the rights of their own citizens, but the Nazi state has gone further in that its basic idea is the deification of force, the dogma of race and the discrimination against all who are not of that race.

The test by which the Nazi state determines whether the rights of men shall be recognized is made dependent not upon the action or conduct of the individual, not upon his merit or the lack of it, but solely on the race from which he has sprung.

Thus Hitler, in a spirit of nationalistic egoism, outlaws the brotherhood of man, proclaims those of his race alone the children of a common father and discriminates against all others. Recognizing that the attributes of the God whom mankind recognizes are too catholic and comprehensive to fit his narrow category, he creates his own god–a god fashioned in the hideous image of Hitlerism.

The facts which many speakers have so eloquently presented to you tonight attest that the multiple tyrannies, oppressions, brutalities, cruelties and injustices, in their various forms and manifestations, are all destructive of the cause of civilization, and are all indications of an aggressive Hitlerism which hurls its defiance at the world.