It derives no less from the experience, which has
shown that men are not likely to discover truth if they cannot speak
it, except under the eye of an uncomprehending policeman.
No one can possibly overestimate the practical value of these civil
liberties, nor the importance of maintaining them. When they are in
jeopardy, the human spirit is in jeopardy, and should there come a
time when they have to be curtailed, as during a war, the suppression
of thought is a risk to civilization which might prevent its recovery
from the effects of war, if the hysterics, who exploit the necessity,
were numerous enough to carry over into peace the taboos of war.
Fortunately, the mass of men is too tolerant long to enjoy the
professional inquisitors, as gradually, under the criticism of men not
willing to be terrorized, they are revealed as mean-spirited creatures
who nine-tenths of the time do not know what they are talking
about. [Footnote: _Cf._ for example, the publications of the Lusk
Committee in New York, and the public statements and prophecies of Mr.
Mitchell Palmer, who was Attorney-General of the United States during
the period of President Wilson's illness.]
But in spite of its fundamental importance, civil liberty in this
sense does not guarantee public opinion in the modern world. For it
always assumes, either that truth is spontaneous, or that the means of
securing truth exist when there is no external interference.
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