Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 52, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1917 — DRAFT RESISTERS [ARTICLE]

DRAFT RESISTERS

It is unfortunate that just when we should have a perfect unanimity of sentiment in this country on the question of prosecuting the war, certain misguided persons should persist in treasonable resistance to the selective draft. Even some preachers, who of all others should both practice and teach unswerving loyalty to the country, have advised their hearers to resist the law. It is hard to believe these people are deliberately disloyal. We would much, prefer to believe that they sin through ignorance. One must be low indeed in the scale of creation "when he can deliberately betray his country and his people. Even that beatific designation of our country as “the land of the free” has grown to mean, in many ignorant minds, something entirely different from its meaning to the person/who sees life as it'is. The man of normal intelligence sees freedom as purely relative. He knows there can be no absolute freedom. As long as there remain two human beings on this earth, neither can possibly be entirely free. The welfare of eithet_must of necessity circumscribe the freedom of the other. It is just this fundamental fact however, that many ignorant minds fail to grasp. To them freedom has no other meaning save license. Once assured that they are free men, any force that interferes with their conception of freedom is to them tyranny and not to be tolerated. It is high time we revised the popular conception of freedom. It is - time the basic truth were stressed that there can be no free-

dom without absolute obedience to law. Disregard of law tends toward anarchy, and anarchy is the very antithesis of freedom. AgMin, many minds fail to appreciate the fact that without the law and its fostering care there could be no such thing as freedom, even safety. And without stable government there can be no effective law. Law, reduced, to Its essence, is but the crystalized will of those affected. Laws for the protection of life and property depend entirely on the will of the various individuals. It is simply the public will reduced to a code. These same malcontents are standing monuments of the efficacy of laws and governments. Without the fostering care of civilized government, it would have been impossible for their forebears to haye evolved anything like as creditably specimens of humanity as even their unworthy selves. Their lives have been guarded and shielded by the protecting power of this same force called law, which force they now in their ignorance and stupidity imagine they can set aside at their pleasure. We as a people have gone too far afield after freedom. We have made of it a fetich. We have distorted and stretched its meaning until the national conception of freedom bears very little resemblance to ’the genuine article. We must get back to the old paths. We must stamp indelibly on the public mind the eternal fact that perfect freedom can come in no other way than through perfect obedience to law. It may take a few firing squads to make this impress, and if so, the sooner they are called out the better.