Sixty or seventy years ago, when United States history was an essential course in elementary public school teaching, many a boy was thrilled by Patrick Henry’s dramatic declaration: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” Patrick Henry was then a delegate to the Second Revolutionary Convention held at Richmond, Virginia, March 23, 1775.

The Creator, who gave man life, planted in his heart the seed of liberty. Free agency, as life, is a gift from God. “Do you wish to be free? Then above all things, love God, love your neighbor, love one another, love the common weal; then you will have true liberty.”

Last Saturday, September 23, 1961, fearing they might be deprived of this inalienable right, two women—”one fifty-seven and the other sixty-three, leaped from an East Berlin apartment building, fronting on a West Berlin street. West Berlin firemen caught them in a safety net while communist police [Vopos] looked on without shooting.