Speech #860044032

There is little need to elaborate to them the importance of the guarantees of freedom of speech. and of the press. freedom of religion. and security from arbitrary deprivation of life. liberty or property. But to those who have never been arrested or tried on a criminal indictment. the wisdom of the great procedural guarantees of the constitution are not always so clearly apparent. Many of the people who came to this continent in colonial times. like many of those who have come in our own day. were refugees from political and religious persecution in the Old World. They knew all too well the methods used by bigots and tyrants to crush the bodies and spirits of those who asked only the liberty to think and to worship as they pleased. They knew from bitter experience the dangers of arbitrary arrest. of unlawful searches and seizures. of confessions extorted by torture. of mock trials before judges who were but lackeys of the ruling power.