To the editor:

We noted with interest professor Michael Hoeflich’s column Wednesday on the topic of freedom of speech. He also provided us with his thoughts a week or so ago on the Thanksgiving holiday. In that earlier column he seems to be attributing much of our success as a nation to luck. There was a similarly reasoned editorial in the Journal-World about the same time.

We beg to differ with both. The professor’s very act of protesting a perceived threat to one of our cherished rights and your willingness to print it suggests a much more fundamental reason for our national success. Many of the less fortunate countries in our world do not have a free press or freedom of speech or even rule of law. They will not prosper without such institutions, and money alone will not deliver them.

We have such institutions because individuals like the professor and you have fought for them. Sure, luck or divine providence, depending on your beliefs, has been a factor, but good old-fashioned diligence, hard work and risk-taking have been present in abundance.

George Lippencott,

Lawrence