Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 73, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 March 1919 — DICTATORSHIP MUST BE OVERTHROWN. [ARTICLE]

DICTATORSHIP MUST BE OVERTHROWN.

The Republican Publicity Association, through its President, Hon. Jonathan Bourne, Jr., has given out the following statement from its Washington Headquarters: “Thia is a time for plain speaking, if individual liberty is to be maintained at home and national freedom maintained abroad. " While the President of the United States is in Europe trying to bind this nation to a league which, in the form proposed by him, surrenders the independence of the United States in several vital particulars, his Political Master General is proceeding at home in the usurpation of powers never intended to be conferred upon him by law. If the league of nations shall be formed with this country a party, on the plan proposed by President Wilson, our national future will be at the mercy of the varying interests of other nations in Europe and Asia. If Mr. Burleson can succeed m his high-handed effort to commit this county to paternalism or worse, on the absurd theory that his present action are essential to the winning of the war, then individual rights in this country are at the mercy of the varying political interests or whims of whoever happens to be temporarily vested with official authority. “Many people have been won to the support of the league of nations scheme by the false assertion that we must choose between that league and chaos. Many people have been induced to look with complacency upon usurpations in the form of seizures of telephone, telegraph and cable properties because those properties happen to be ownde by corporations and because it is falsely asserted that they acn be operated more economically and efficiently by government officials than by private managers. “According to the most plausible advices received from our secretive representatives in Europe, it is apparntly the plan to weave the league of nations into the peace treaty in such a way as to force its adoption without opportunity to consider it solely upon its own merits, thus practically nullifying that provision of the constitution which stipulates that treaties shall be made only bne advice and consent of two-thirds of the Senate. It is proposed to force adoption of an objectionable nder as an esseitianl incident to a desirable peace treaty. It is proposed in our domestic business affairs to scramble public utility concerns and destroy their separate organizations in such a way as to make restitution difficult if not impossible, and thus force the country to a policy of government ownership without regard to the judgment or wishes of the people or their representatives in Congress. “This is a plain statement of what is going on. It is subversion of that orderly procedure contemplated by the letter and spirit of the constitution and laws of the United States. The President and his Political Master General have set their wills above ' the law and the constitution, and ' propose to commit this government and its destinies to certain policies vitally menacng the future of the nation. , . , “If the President places the league of nations question before the Sen- ’ ate in such a form that it cannot be passed upon according to its own merits, aside from a question of peace with Germany, or if the Postmaster Genera) manipulates the proerty that has 'been committed to his control, under the guise of war necessity, in such a manner that the property cannot be returned to its owners, it will be the plain duty of the House of Representatives to present an impeachment against either er both, to be tried by the Senate in accordance with the letter and spirit of the constitution. “The vital question now before the country is whether this is a government by law or a government by men. Now is the time to settie it once and for all.”