The East Hartford Gazette

The American Way
Nothing for Something
By George Peck

"Something For Nothing" is a phrase that has been much bandied about in recent years. Editors, economists, columnists, politicians have waxed eloquent in deploring the modern tendency of asking Uncle Sam to dispense his bounty with no thought as to how and from whom the chin-whiskered gent obtains the bounty to dispense.

It seems to have been thoroughly proven that no government can give anything to its citizens that it first does not take away from them. Then, why do so many American citizens still clamor for more and more hand-outs from Washington? Why does agitation continue for free medicine, public housing, farm subsidies, Federal aid to education, to mention only a few of the proposals to add to the already onerous tax burden or to increase the already staggering Federal debt?

The truth of the matter is that the citizen who is seeking "Something For Nothing" may for a transitory period achieve his ambition, but sooner or later he will realize he has been chasing a "will o'the wisp". He will wake up some sorry day to find that what he really has achieved is to have gotten "Nothing for Something".

Here in America, the individual citizen has enjoyed a great measure of freedom - the greatest in world history. It has been his most precious asset, transcending even whatever material wealth he may have gained. As a matter of fact, a maximum number of American citizens has been able to gain material wealth, because, first of all, they had personal freedom - freedom to work where and at what they chose; freedom to save and to risk their savings.

When our Federal Government, or any other government, makes a gift, it must impose rules and regulations upon the recipient. Right there the citizen relinquishes a part of his most precious asset - personal liberty. As he accepts more and more from his Government, he loses more and more of his freedom. Then when Government has been completely socialized, all personal liberty vanishes into thin air. With freedom of enterprise completely wiped out, his paternalistic Government then finds it has very little or no largess to hand out to its citizens — but the controls and regulations remain. In grasping for "Something For Nothing," the citizen at last learns that what he has done has been to get "Nothing For Something."

At any rate, that is what has happened throughout history in every nation that has embraced socialism. It is happening in England today, even though that country has gone only part way on the road toward complete socialization of its industries and natural resources. The London (England) Sunday Times in a recent issue had the following terse comment to make regarding the sad state of His Majesty's loyal subjects:

"The walls of the prison close in day by day; the area of enterprise shrinks. Day by day the ceiling of opportunity is lowered. We prisoners are charged more for the expense of the multiplying jailers. Food and drink diminish in quantity and quality month by month. There is no incentive to bold undertakings except a heartless propaganda which urges all dogs collectively to jump the moon while keeping chained each dog with a spark or heart in him. Socialism, as now interpreted here in England, is without prizes, boredom without hope, war without victory, and statistics without end."

The English people in striving for "Something For Nothing" are beginning to find out the futility of such expectation, and to realize that they are getting "Nothing For Something."