Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 310, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 January 1918 — GOVERNMENT ABLE TO CRUSH TREASON [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GOVERNMENT ABLE TO CRUSH TREASON

Has Ample Power to Handle Mal- | ■ contents, Says Attorney General Gregory. | SACRIFICES MUST BE MADE Some Called Upon to Break. With Friends and Kindred As Those Did Who Secured Liberties Enjoyed Today. By THOMAS W. GREGORY, Attorney General of the United States. The sporadic activities of a few agitators who, led by good or bad motives, seek to hamper our work in tluf*war justify me as the chief law officer of .the executive branch of the govern-

ment in calling attention to the duties, mqral and legal, of all persons owing temporary or permanent allegiance to the United States. The German government began this war by a contemptuous breach of Its formally plighted faith made in solemn treaty and from the beginning until now has more than made good this ominous earnest of its intention and temper. The president has shown us how one by one, as opportunity offered, the safeguards which civilization has been able during the centuries to throw around neutrals and the nonflghtlng people of warring nations were ruthlessly torn down; how patient and longsuffering remonstrance and request were met by fair words, and fairer promises made only to be broken. We all know as but sober fact, plainly stated, that the imperial government has allowed no rule of war, no principle of civilization, no consideration of humanity, no teaching of Christianity to stand between it and the working outof its illegal purposes. For half a century that government has schemed, and prepared to dominate the world by “blood and Iron.” For half a century the officials of the Imperial government, from the kaiser down, including even the teachers of their children, have prostituted the minds of their youth until the whole people has been, led to a toleration, if not approval, of the hideous outrages and barbarities practiced by that government in this war. While yet we were neutral, struggling to keep free from the conflict, the representatives of that government in this country planned to destroy our factories and our railroads, forged our public papers, deceived us when convenient, . violated our hospitality and our sovereignty, while they plotted against our territorial integrity; they deliberately and with malice and affronting forewarning drowned our helpless women and babes and declared a public holiday that their own innocent children might celebrate the rounder. Seek to Rule.

They have bombarded unfortified towns and bombed the unprotected homes of their foes, taking their tojl'of wounded and dead from the aged and infirm, the young and the helpless. They have made barren desert of the garden spots of the earth; they have needlessly pillaged and willfully burned towns; they have reduced to slavery men, women and children; they have wrecked and torn asunder families with a system diabolical in its efficiency. As the war has gone on, the ultimate aim of the imperial government has become more and more clear. Drunk with the sense of its own power and its asserted superiority, it has proposed to secure a dominating position for itself and for its system over the entire world. Nowhere yielding to the people their rightful powers, and everywhere seeking to uphold autocracy and despotism, it has shown its intention to perpetuate absolute government of which it admittedly is the head and front. Its “kultur” .is avowed to be the acme of human goodness and endeavor, and is to boast the rulership of the world, gained by force and arms. The world must fight to preserve itself. Of this there can be no d<>ubt. Kings Against Peoples. Heretofore, save in rare cases, war has been a fight between Armies; but this war, because of the initial preparation for it by an autocracy which

prostituted a whole mighty nation to its purpose is a contest between peoples themselves. It is correspondingly intense and relentless. The march of events shows that it is now a war of system—kings against peoples. If our enemy win, will dominate tfag world, because no democracy fights wither for them. The Prussian autocrat and the brutal Turk will impose upon us their wills, tell us what we may do, what we may not do, and the horrors and atrocities of Belgium and Armenia leave no doubt what this means. Thus our own very life came to be bound up in the outcome of this war long before we entered it, and even years before the war broke. To the man of vision it is as as sunlight that the aim and the plan of the imperial government was ahd is to conquer the world, nation by nation. It was flrst to defeat France and Russia, next to dominate Great Britain, and with Europe at its feet to turn to America. “Kultur” and the German ■word were to rule around the world. \ Congress Gave Pledge. With all thia before them congress,

the chosen representatives of the people, exercising their constitutional duty and with a realizing sense of their great' responsibility, announced in-joint resolution “that,the state of war between the United States and the imperial German government which has been thrust upon the United States is hereby formally declared,” and that “to bring the conflict to a successful termination all the resources of the country are hereby pledged.”

This is our promise to those we help, our warning and threat to those we fight. Our own fair name is bound up In this pledge. Our honor demands that it be met to the full measure. From the time congress and the president thus spoke for us it became the duty, moral and legal, of each of us to abate nothing that lay within his power to make our pledge good. Whatever our views, whatever our sympathies heretofore had been, the quarrel was now our quarrel, and we must be true to it In order to be true to ourselves. That this meant that some of us must break with cherished memories, with friends, home, and kindred, cannot matter. So broke our fathers, who give us our liberties; so must we break to preserve them. The man who is unwilling to make that sacrifice, is unworthy the liberties he enjoys and\ is unwelcome in our midst. The sovereign people of the United States have willed ‘'that our every available resource of men and Industry must play Its part In winning this war, and no

head is too high or too. low to wish to escape the heavy hand of our sovereign necessity. No Half-Measures in Future. I have spoken thus far, not of the legal penalties which attach to obstruction ahd disloyalty to this government, but of the btoad political and moral elements of our situation and of th e considerations of integrity and honor which must impel us to loyalty to our cause and compel our active aid and support I have done this because after all our safety lies not id penal statutes, but in a realizing of. a righteous cause, a firm resolution to do our full duty,- and understanding that we fight .for the liberties of ourselves, our families and our posterity. I have purposely moved slowly and with caution in invoking the strong arm of the law for seeming disloyalty, believing that more mature consideration would show the occasional agitator that he was Wrong and the rest of us were right. However, I shall not be half-measured in undertaking the control of those who persist in their disloyalty and schemings against the government and its purposes. The federal government is not powerless to handle such malcontents. Amongst other offences, it can prosecute those who willfully make or convey false reports or false statements, when the United States is at war, with Intent to interfere with the operation or success of -the military or naval forces of the federal government, or to promote the success of our country’s enemies; also those who willfully cause, or attempt to cause, insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of duty, or willfully obstruct the recruiting or enlistment service of the United States; also those who impede, obstruct or prevent the execution of the laws of the United States; also those who undertake to overawe the officers of the United States in performing their duties either by direct intimidation or threats, or by injuring their persons or property; also those who engage in sedltibus conspiracies to overthrow or levy war against the government br forcibly oppose its authority.

New Laws Give Power. The recently enacted espionage act is designed, among other things, to punish spies, regulate the use of the mails, and punish those who abuse that use. ■ The provisions of the selective-draft act provide punishment for those who fail or refuse to register, or hinder or obstruct the enforcement of that act. Treason (defined by the (Constitution as consisting only in levying war against the United States, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort) is punishable by death, and the other offenses mentioned by severe and just penalties. The federal government can find In existing statutes and others now pending before congress powers to handle any situation likely to arise because of the ill-advised activities of disloyal agitators. ’

Thomas W. Gregory.