In the late 1960’s and early 70’s at the height of leftist student campus rebellions, the following quote was widely circulated in the left wing publications and even was on posters that adorned dormitory walls: “The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting.

Communists are seeking to destroy our country…..And the republic is in danger. Yes! Danger from within and without.

We need law and order!

Without law and order our nation cannot survive.” –Adolph Hitler, 1932.

This quote must have sounded very ominous to those students. The fact is, Hitler did not say it.

It was the urban legend of the time, a time the Internet did not exist.

One must do his research.

No political ideology has a monopoly on the truth. There are those that will resort to lies and half-truths to put forward their beliefs, even if those beliefs are correct.

The authors of these messages knew full well what they were doing, but those that distributed those messages were true believers that did not question anything that supported their views or agendas.

Again, one must check his sources.

Incidentally, this bogus quote has found new life in other parts of the world. It can be found on this web site,: People's Democracy (Weekly Organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist).

For some reason it is included in their rant against “liberals”.

While it is true, the nation we call the United States of America came in to existence after the ratification of the Constitution in 1787, it was a budding democracy, a work in progress.

Ever since the United States became independent, people were given the right to vote, but only white land-owners. Back then, slaves had no rights and women simply didn't have the right to vote.

After the Civil War, on December 6, 1865, the thirteenth amendment was ratified and slaves were free and slavery shall not exist in the United States.

Passing of the thirteenth Amendment would lead to the Fourteenth Amendment being ratified three years later on July 9, 1868 saying that all "men" born in the United States and of the State where they live would be a citizen, giving every man, including African American men, citizenship rights.

After this, a year and a half later on February 3, 1870, the fifteenth Amendment was ratified giving every man the right to vote and should not be denied by the United States or by any State because of race, skin color, or previous conditions of servitude.

With this Amendment being passed gave previous slaves and poor whites all the right to vote.

Women didn't get the right to vote until another fifty years later after African Americans and poor whites were given the right.

As far back as 1848, groups of women would join together to discuss how to further women rights.

Susan B. Anthony was one big influence on ending women suffrage and actually tried to vote and was later fined for doing so.

After seventy-two years of trying to get women rights, on August 18, 1920, The Congress ratified the nineteenth Amendment, ending women suffrage "The Voting Rights Act" signed into law on August 6, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson, outlawed the discriminatory voting practices adopted in many southern states after the Civil War, including literacy tests as a prerequisite to voting.

In 1971, 1818--20 year olds gained the right to vote with the passage of the 26th amendment to the United States Constitution. Until that time young Americans under 21 years of age fighting in Vietnam and all previous wars had no such right.

Alexander Tyler was fairly close when he state that the great civilizations that followed the fall of the Athenian lasted but 200 years, but nowhere has he stated that these nations were democratic.

If they were democratic, what were their names?

In any event this quote first surfaced around 1950 and returned in 2000. There is no credible evidence that that Mr. Tyler wrote any of it.

It is now considered to be an “urban legend”