Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 66, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1918 — TELL US TRUTH INSISTS LODGE [ARTICLE]

TELL US TRUTH INSISTS LODGE

MASSACHUSETTS SENATOR DECLARES ONE YEAR HAS BEEN WASHED.' Washington, March 26. —With the fate of the war “trembling in the balance,” Senator Lodge, Republican, of Massachusetts, today denounced as a “crime” the government’s “refusal to inform the people of America’s peril.” . Compulsory military training was advocated by Mr. Lodge, who urged adoption of the amendment to the selection law, introduced by Senator New, of Indiana, providing for the training of boys between the ages of 18 and 21 years. . U A lasted year is behind us. he exclaimed in a passionate speech before the Senate. “Our sector of the front in France is undefended from the air. There is not a single Ameri-' can combat plane in France, though we’ve spent $840,000,000 in the last year.” This fact is well known, he said, to the Germans. «. “Our gallant allies are holding back the German advance at terrible cost. In this dark hour it is a crime to keep from the American people facts well known to the enemy.” Continuing his assault o nthe airplane program, Mr. Lodge said: “I think we have sent one plane. It may be bn the way now. The Liberty motor, the heavy one, may be developed for bombing planes, but the light one it not suitable for fighting planes. “We’ve no American guns in France. When we decided to make French 75s we wasted six golden months trying to improve the recoil —the best recoil in the world, by all the experts, Six months wasted and not a gun in France! “We’ve turned out two American ships. True, we have commandeered some ships, but we’ve only built two new ones.

“It is to the last degree painful to say these things, but they are the truth. They are there to be dealt with cold, hard facts. The truth—tell it to the American people. They should no longer be misled about what we are about to do. Tell the facta. That will arouse the genuine grim American spirit. “Tell them exactly where we are today. The world looked to us a year ago to save the situation, to come to tii? rescue. We have not. ‘The only re' es 1 see is an appeal to American spirit, and you can't arouse that if -vu deceive them We may be fightin? before lung for e < scei ce as an independent nation “The time has gone by when it is right to keep silent. I, for one American, want my people to know what the true situation is.”