by Arthur Francis

From the gutters of New York the cry of freedom cuddles Wall Street. London gentlemen balance their budgets and speak of the fight for democracy. Germanic Bonn accepts the results of one world war and millions of dollars and marches again for the right to have the blessed bomb of all ages, perhaps the last. 

What the red duster our old friend Thomas would have thought of it all we know not. Perhaps he would have yelled about starvation and white cruelty. He may have felt sore at heart over two halves of the world screaming about the rights of man to starve or be imprisoned for an opinion. 

But there, Mr. Paine knew of these dangers too many years ago. He would not conform to lies and cheats and wanted man to act with honesty and truth. Of course, they were ignorant times of ignorant people at the top level. Many educational reforms have passed under London Bridge since then. We have a free press ruled, in the main, by commerce and its adverts. Many dailies in the “free” and “iron curtain” lands are an insult to man’s new knowledge. 

Are we not back to Thomas Paine? 

No, but let us be careful with ANT political discrimination. To cry with full freedom, “He’s a Red”, is too easy a way to answer a modern problem. To jail a man, be it in the holiday haunt of Spain or in freezing Moscow will never answer the challenge of Thomas Paine. 

Freedom. 

We cannot afford a 1966 Battle of Hastings. The Rights of Man are more important than even in the sad days of the Grand Old Man of the People – the late Mr.Thomas Paine.