Freedom in not a luxury that we can indulge in when at last we have security and prosperity and enlightenment; it is, rather, antecedent to all of th… - Henry Steele Commager

With the Sedition and Espionage Acts … the "red hysteria" of the Twenties, the Alien Registration Act of 1940, the loyalty tests and purges of the mid-Forties, the establishment of un-American Activities Committees, intolerance received, as it were, the stamp of official approval. Loyalty was identified with conformity, and the American genius, which had been experimental and even rebellious, was required to conform to a pattern.

The American people have a stake in the maintenance of the most thorough-going inquisition into American institutions. They have a stake in nonconformity, for they know that the American genius is nonconformist.

Loyalty… is a realization that America was born of revolt, flourished in dissent, became great through experimentation.