Ickes’ People’s Peace

The Autobiography of a Curmudgeon

The Autobiography of a Curmudgeon

Last time I wrote about Harold Ickes, FDR’s Interior Secretary. The last chapter of Ickes’ 1943 ‘Autobiography of a Curmudgeon’ is titled ‘A People’s Peace’. He yearns for a peace that comes from the ground up rather than being imposed from above and suggests the following principles:

 First : The right to think and speak and print freely.

Second: the right to worship according to the dictates of one’s own conscience.

Third: the right of freedom from discrimination on account of race or creed or colour.

Fourth: The right of adult citizenship which means the right to vote on terms of equality with all others.

Fifth: The right to work at a fair wage that will provide a living, with something over for leisure and modest luxuries.

Sixth: The right to an education up to one’s ability to absorb and use that education.

Seventh: The right to create for oneself such happiness as maybe within one’s capacity.

Eighth: The right to move freely and to act independently, consistent with the same rights in others.

Ninth: The right to security — to financial security and to physical security including the right of preventative and of curative medicine.

Tenth: The right to justice without fear or favour and at the lowest possible cost.

Eleventh: The right to free government of one’s own choosing.

Twelfth: The right to freedom from servitude to unfair and undemocratic special privilege.

Thirteenth: The right to be taxed fairly for the support of the government on an equitable basis as between the richest and the poorest.

Fourteenth: The right to an equal opportunity under the law.

Fifteenth: The right to bring international criminals before the bar of an international court.

Sixteenth: The right to live while recognizing the obligation to let live.


 

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