“Our system of government demands for its smooth functioning and permanency an intelligent and well-informed citizenry. Our citizens must have the knowledge, the desire and the will to elect the proper kind of men as public officials. Political charlatans are always ready to take advantage of uninformed voters. Our citizens must have wide information to understand the economic and political problems of the day. Wireless, radio and aviation have made time and space negligible factors in modern life. What happens in any part of the world is known almost instantaneously everywhere else and expects an immediate effect.”

The daily newspaper (today social media & television) has become a universal means of keeping people informed. The radio too, has become an important means of gaining access to the public. Since it is easy for men of wealth and power to use the newspaper and radio (today television & social media) as instruments of propaganda, the average citizen must be able to differentiate between truth and falsehood, he must not permit himself to be a victim of rumor propaganda and downright misrepresentation and falsehood. He must read his newspapers (watch TV and post) with intelligence and discrimination, to quote Henry Wallace, “In the democracy of tomorrow, people will have to be intelligently free from prejudice that neither the wealthy, interested in private control of government for personal ends, nor demagogues, interested in their jobs, will be able to create deception and illusion.”

(Excerpts from the Rosicrucian Digest, July 1941)

Photo: Frances Benjamin Johnston was commissioned to photograph Tuskegee in 1902. This photograph shows a history class learning about Native Americans and Captain John Smith in Virginia.