Problems to Fix at Home

From a speech delivered by Fr. John A. O'Brien, professor of the philosophy of religion in the graduate school at Notre Dame, published in the May 12, 1941 issue of Social Justice.

"The richest one-tenth of one percent of American families, according to the Brookings Institute, received in 1929, as large a share of the products of industry as the poorest 42%. This means that 36,000 families at the top of the income scale obtained as much as 11,650,000 families at the bottom. Is this the kind of democracy we are being asked to bring, as a gift from Mt. Olympus, to the peoples of Europe, Africa, Asia?
"How can we talk about democracy, the moral order, social justice and the supremacy of human rights, when in our midst are millions of (Americans) who do not have even a nodding acquaintance with those ideals? How can we impose them at a point of a bayonet upon other peoples when we have not been able to secure them for the majority of our own?
"War is a false path to that freedom. We do no supply [political freedom] by engaging in a gigantic campaign of destruction, by plowing under every fourth American, and by setting our own house on fire."