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Friday, July 7, 1972
University Kamper Kansan
To An Anxious Friend
You tell me that law is freedom of utterance. And I reply that you can have no wise laws unless there is free expression of the wisdom of the people—and, alas, their folly with it. But if there is freedom, felony will die of its own poison, and the wisdom will survive. That is the history of the race. It is proof of man's kinskiy with God. You say that freedom of utterance is not for time of stress, and I reply with the same and the same that only is a burden of freedom of utterance. And one questions it in calm days, because it is not needed. And the reverse is true also; only when free utterance is suppressed is it needed, and when it is needed, it is most vital to justice.
Peace is good. But if you are interested in peace through force and without free discussion—that is to say, free utterance decently and in order—your interest in justice is slight. And peace without justice is tyranny, no matter how you may sugar-coat it with expedition. This state today is in more danger from suppression than from violence, because, in the end, suppression leads to violence. Violence, indeed, is the child of suppression. Whoever pleads for justice helps to keep the peace; and whoever tramplets on the plea for justice temperately made in the name of peace only outrages peace and kills something fine in the heart of man which God put there when we got our manhood. When that is killed, brute meets brute on each side of the line.
So, dear friend, put fear out of your heart. This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward if only men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold—by voice, by posted card, by letter, or by press. Reason has never failed men. Only force and repression have made the wrecks in the world.
—William Allen White
Photos by: Jackie White Connie Lueking Debbie Fawkes Chuck Smith David Reibman