New tyrants, defending the ancient tyranny, intend to destroy utterly this new idea that men are free. They do not believe it. As firmly as Lycurgus or Nebuchadnezzar, they believe that all men are naturally subject to Authority (all but themselves.) Government, they believe is Authority; they are Government. They accept that responsibility. They believe that they should, and that they do, control the inferior masses. And by the use of the real power, force (permitted by the false beliefs of their wretched subjects) they intend to make their imaginary static world orderly, as it was before the Revolution began.

Mussolini will bring back the grandeur that was ancient Rome. Hitler will resurrect the Holy Roman Empire of the 16th century and establish it with pagan gods older than Rome, to endure for a thousand years. The Japanese will have all Asia for the Asiatics, as it was before Mohammed was born.

Fanatic reactionaries, counter-revolutionists, defenders of a tyranny older than history, they imagine that they can go back to the past before America was discovered. And they dare to claim that they are creating a new world!

And now they are armed. The Revolution has armed them as tyrants never were armed before…

Blind, ignorant, bestially unable to understand this New World, these counter-revolutionists use free men’s discoveries, their inventions, their techniques and their tools, to tear this earth-encircling network of dynamic, productive energies to pieces and to destroy the freedom that creates it. Idiots who would kill the living thing they want, by clutching it…

Americans are fighting a World War now because the Revolution is World Revolution. Freedom creates this new world, that cannot exist half slave and half free. It will be free.

by Rose Wilder Lane