Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 83, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 January 1920 — THE ROUND-UP OF “REDS.” [ARTICLE]

THE ROUND-UP OF “REDS.”

Foreigners electing to sojourn in the American “international boarding house” which has been so hospitably open to them, possess in peace the same right of free speech that is granted our own citizens. They may express opinions of any sort and argue in favor of any kind of government, even that which by all accounts has made a desolation of Russia. But when they league together and plot to bring about both industrial and political revolution in this country they become not Only a menace but an immediate peril and the employment of ' the strong hand of authority is imperative. The arrest of 4,500 radicals, 1

following the . deportation of 289 “reds” on a United States transport, is a simple act of self-protection •on the part of the government, calling for the approval and support of all sane citizens.

It is in no sense a denial of free speech. It is a response to overt act. Only parlor socialists or other piebald assortments of cranks will interpret it as a limitation of rightful liberty. Attorney-General Palmer is using the power of his office and the lorces of. law at his command, not against a tolerable radicalism, but against armed and aggressive anarchy. The distinction is clear, as he himself has pointed out. The clean-up of these viciously plotting alien malcontents is just aS necessary as a sanitary clean-up would be if the country were threatened with devastating