To the Journal editor: As part of our celebration of
Thanksgiving, we give thanks to revolutionaries who progressed
our basic right. What is our basic right? Aspects of our basic
right are revealed in our many policy statements, including
those related to our Revolution, New Deal, civil rights
movements, feminist movements, and environmental movements. The
clearest statement of our basic right is in our Pledge of
Allegiance that declares "justice for all." These reveal our
progression from a minimalist federal government promoting
justice for few wealthy white males, to an activist national
government promoting justice for all. Who are our
revolutionaries who progressed justice for all? President
Franklin Delano Roosevelt opposed our unemployment of the 1930s
Great Depression and constructed our New Deal in which an
activist national government progressed economic rights,
including promoting work for our unemployed, unions, regulation
of business, progressive taxation, and retirement security.
Martin Luther K