SECRET BALLOT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 225, 21 September 1940, Page 10

SECRET BALLOT.

FREEDOM'S ANCHOR. President Roosevelt's Warning To Americans. I'uited Press Association.—Copyright. (Reed. 2 p.m.) NEW YORK. Sept. 20.! President Roosevelt, in a speech, said: "I regret to say that even today there are demands for the return of a Government to control those few who, because of their business ability or economic omniscience, are supposed to be just a touch above the average of our citizens. The great danger is that once the Government falls into the hands of a few elite the curtailment or even the abolition of free elections might be adopted as a means of keeping them in power.

'■ Free elections mean enduring safety for our form of government. No dictator in history lias dared to run that gauntlet of a leallv fiee election"

President Iloose.velt said the Germandespaired of their democracy and listened to the new cult of Nazi-ism in wliieh a minority offered "bread, shelter and better government by the rule of a handful of people boasting a special aptitude in government but making no mention of the abolition of free elections."

Many people in large businesses, dissatislicd with the democratic system, formed political and economic alliances with the Nazi group, he said, and added;

" You and I know the subsequent history of Germany. The right of fre-e elections was suddenly wiped out by the new tegime,?