Part 16

One item in waging the war ought to be insistence that every American of fighting age who resides in the British Empire and every Englishman of fighting age who resides in the United States be invariably put in either the British or the American armies. One item in making peace ought to be insistence that Britain keep every colony she has conquered from Germany, both in the South Seas and in Africa. Germany has behaved abominably in Africa. The course Germany has followed in Africa has made her a menace of evil to the Boer and British Africanders, and to return to her the colonies which have been taken from her, whether in Africa or Asia, by Australia or Great Britain, or by France or Japan or Belgium, would be a crime against civilization.

THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD

AUGUST 20, 1918

Every loyal American citizen in Michigan should read the last two numbers of Mr. George Harvey’s War Weekly. In these numbers there are quotations from Mr. Henry Ford’s speeches made two years ago and again since we entered the war. Mr. Ford has not questioned the accuracy of these quotations given by Mr. Harvey.

Speaking of American flags over his own factory Mr. Ford said: “I don’t believe in the flag. When the war is over these flags shall come down never to go up again.”

The Sedition Act, approved by President Wilson, inflicts a maximum punishment of twenty years in the penitentiary for any man who, while we are at war, utters “language intended to bring the flag of the United States into contempt or disrepute.” During the last year many poor and ignorant men have been convicted and sentenced for using language thus forbidden by law. In my view the fact that Mr. Ford is an enormously wealthy man ought not to give him immunity from the law if he cannot show that he did not use the language quoted in the War Weekly. But whether or not amenable to the law, no patriotic American can afford to put in the Senate, perhaps to help negotiate the peace treaty, a man who announces that as soon as peace comes he wishes to haul down the American flag and never again to hoist it. To send such a man to the Senate professing such sentiments under existing conditions would give the enemy a wholly wrong idea of the pacifist sentiment in our country. There is nothing in the world which would now help Germany as much, or give her so much heart in her struggle for the overthrow of liberty and democracy as the belief that men professing such sentiments would have part in the peace negotiations on behalf of this country.

Among the further utterances of Mr. Ford (as given in the War Weekly) is one that he does “not believe in patriotism” and that he does not care any more for the United States “than for China or Hindustan.” The man who does not believe in patriotism is not fit to live in this country, still less to represent it in the Senate. If these words of Mr. Ford mean anything, then Mr. Ford is unpatriotic and has no more right to sit in the United States Senate than a Hindu or a Chinaman. Unless Mr. Ford can show that he never uttered these words no man worthy to be called an American, and least of all any religious or patriotic man, can afford to support him for the Senate.

Mr. Ford has been given immensely valuable war contracts of the Government. No doubt he has executed them as well as the thousands of other contractors who now render service to the Government for pay. But no service he can thus render the Government can offset the frightful damage he did our people by the lavish use he made of his enormous wealth in a gigantic and profoundly anti-American propaganda against preparedness and against our performance of international duty during the two and a half years before we entered the war. This crusade against righteousness included the sending of the ridiculous “peace ship” to Europe. This particular manifestation was too absurd even to do harm, but so far as it had any effect at all it encouraged Germany to believe that we were as neutral between right and wrong as Pontius, and that as far as we were concerned she could safely proceed with wrongdoing because we held the scales of judgment even between the wrongdoer and his victim. The crusade also included an extraordinary series of advertisements issued long after the Lusitania was sunk, in which Mr. Ford violently opposed and denounced preparedness, advocated and approved the McLemore resolutions, and announced that it was our duty to keep out of war; and not merely himself kept silent about the wrongdoing of Germany, but assailed those who set forth this wrongdoing on the ground that they “had bred racial hatred by the printing of incendiary news stories and articles.” It may well be doubted whether this propaganda did not do more damage to the American people than the propaganda carried on at the same time by Ambassador Bernstorff.

If we had seen our duty and had fully prepared during these two and a half years, either we would never have had to enter the war or we would have brought it to a close immediately after we entered it. The best and bravest of the young men of the Nation are now paying with their blood for our unpreparedness and therefore for the pacific propaganda quite as much as for the pro-German propaganda carried on in this country during the two and a half years before we entered the war. But wealthy Mr. Ford’s son is not among these men. He is of draft age. He applied for exemption. The local board refused his application. He applied to the President. The President did not act for two months. Then the revised draft regulations were promulgated, and Mr. Ford was excepted under the deferred or exempted class which included a married man with a child, however wealthy that man might be. He has exercised his legal right. Very many thousands of young Americans, men of small means who are not sons of multi-millionaires, have declined to take advantage of this legal right. They have left their wives and babies to go to war for a great ideal, for love of country, for love of liberty and of civilization. But Mr. Ford’s son stays at home. These other young Americans face death and endure unspeakable hardships and misery and fatigue for the sake of America and have surrendered all hope of money-getting, of comfort and of safety. But young Mr. Ford, in ease and safety, is in the employ of his wealthy father.

In private relations I understand that Mr. Ford is an amiable man. But I am not dealing with him in his private relations. I am discussing him as a candidate for high office. We are bound truthfully to set forth what we believe will be the effect of his election, and therefore we are bound to say that it would be damaging to the United States and would be encouraging to Germany. No patriotic American should support Mr. Ford.

SPEED UP THE WORK FOR THE ARMY AND GIVE ALL WHO ENTER IT FAIR PLAY

AUGUST 23, 1918

Our Government must learn that needless delay is worse than a blunder. We are sending troops to Siberia. This is good, but it would have been ten times better to have sent them last spring when the need was precisely as evident as it is now. The Administration is now preparing to ask Congress to arrange for putting between three and four million men in France by next July. Six months ago our best military advisers and our most far-sighted civilian leaders were urging that we prepare to put five million men in France by next March. The delay has been absolutely needless and may be very harmful. When last spring the demand for five million men was being incessantly urged, President Wilson treated it as merely a case for competitive rhetoric, and asked, with dramatic effect, why we should limit the number at all. But he actually has limited it to a much smaller number at a much later date. Therefore let there at least be no further delay. And above all let us not be misled by the persons who say that Germany will make peace before next spring. Our business is to act on the assumption that we shall have to put forth our utmost effort next spring and not to take any unnecessary chances.

The Government is now very properly proposing to enlarge the draft age limits to include all the men of fighting age, all the men of the ages which furnished the enormous majority of the soldiers of the Civil War. The number of men in the excepted classes should be greatly reduced. There are too many exceptions. It is earnestly to be hoped that the plan will include the institution of universal obligatory military training of all our young men of eighteen to twenty years old as a permanent policy.

But we ought not to adopt the plan recently proposed for special advantages to be given by the Government to young men who go to college and take certain special courses with a view to becoming officers. This would amount to giving a special privilege to persons with money enough to send their boys to college in order to have them escape the draft and secure commissions. This is not fair. It means giving a privilege to money. There is no excuse for giving such a preference to young men of eighteen or nineteen at this time when we have been at war eighteen months. There is still need to give some of the older men a special chance to train. But there is no such need in the case of men under twenty-one.

There was every reason of sound public policy at the outset of the war to take advantage of the forethought and self-denial of the young men who at the Plattsburg and similar camps had at their own expense prepared themselves before the war began, and when, owing to the failure of the Government to do its duty, they were the only men who did prepare. There has been good reason for similar camps for young men during the last eighteen months before our general training camps began to show their full results. But from now on every young officer should be chosen on his merits from the men who enter the army in the ranks. Only the men who show their fitness, by whatever tests are deemed necessary after service in the ranks, should be sent to officers’ schools, and money should play no part whatever in the matter.

SENATOR LODGE’S NOBLE SPEECH

SEPTEMBER 1, 1918

Senator Lodge’s speech dealing with the principles for which we are fighting and setting forth in detailed outline the kind of peace which alone will mean the peace of victory was a really noble speech. Nothing is easier, and from the national standpoint as distinguished from the standpoint of personal benefit to the speaker, nothing is less useful than a speech of such glittering generalities that almost anybody can interpret it in almost any manner. Only a great statesman possesses the courage, the knowledge, and the power of expression to set forth in convincing fashion the detailed statement of the objects which must be attained if such a war as that in which we are engaged is to be crowned by a peace wholly worth the terrible cost of life and happiness caused by the war. This is the service which Senator Lodge has rendered to this Nation and to our allies.

From time to time in our history the Senate has rendered services of exceptional magnitude to the Nation. Never in our history has it rendered greater service than during the last nine months. The greatest men who have ever sat in it, men such as Clay and Webster and Calhoun and Benton, did not stand forth in leadership more clearly than a dozen of the Senators who, during the last nine months, have fearlessly and disinterestedly borne the burden of speeding up the war and endeavoring to place our international relations on exactly the right lines.

These leaders have in actual fact adjourned politics. They have considered only their patriotic duty in all matters concerning this war and our relations with our allies and our enemies. The most efficient service toward speeding up the war and enabling this Nation to do its duty that has been rendered by any civilian public servants of the Nation is the service rendered by Senator Chamberlain and the Senators, both Democrats and Republicans, who acted with him on the Military Affairs Committee in the investigation of the War Department last winter. Within the last fortnight a service of similar character has been rendered by Senator Thomas and his associates in both parties on the sub-committee which has at last put before the people the truth about the breakdown of our aircraft programme. The fact that this summer we have put masses of armed men into France is primarily due to Senator Chamberlain and the Senators of both parties who have acted with him. The fact that next summer we shall at last back up American troops with American airplanes will be due primarily to Senator Thomas and his associates.

APPLIED PATRIOTISM

SEPTEMBER 8, 1918

The official record of the Illinois branch of the United Mine Workers of America furnishes an instructive lesson in applied patriotism. The president of the branch is Mr. Frank Farrington. The United Mine Workers are affiliated with the American Federation of Labor.

President Farrington’s circulars to the Illinois mine workers set forth the need and the justice of this war and the duty of patriotic Americans in the most straightforward and clear-cut fashion. He states that this is the war for liberty and humanity and for American rights, and that there rests “upon every American and upon every man who has partaken of America’s bounty the solemn obligation of loyally doing their part to win victory for the cause America represents.” He promises the mine workers that their rights shall be protected and secured, but insists that they shall lend every energy to increase the output of coal so as to help our army at the front, which, as he finely says, includes “sons of the rich and sons of the poor men who love life as one, but who prefer death to life without liberty and who have made common cause and entered the lists in answer to the Nation’s need.”

The improper practices are specifically pointed out and condemned, such as shutting down mines in violation of agreement in order to force some desired condition, or making improper restrictions to curtail production. The appeal is solemnly made to, and on behalf of, the miners’ union that there must be full service to the Nation and no shirking of duty, and that no agreement into which the union enters shall be treated as a scrap of paper, but shall be in good faith fulfilled. President Farrington in his official circulars lays constantly increasing stress upon the seriousness of the obligation resting upon the miners to aid and sustain the Allied armies in their fight for the freedom of humanity by hard, steady work and by increasing the output of coal. He condemns with genuine loftiness of feeling and expression all who fail to give the utmost help to the men who at the front are doing so much and suffering so much.

The Illinois mine workers number about ninety thousand members. They are divided into three hundred and twenty local unions. Of these I have figures from only one hundred and twenty. They have sent over four thousand men into the army and navy of the United States, have purchased over two million dollars’ worth of Liberty bonds, $700,000 of War Savings Stamps, and have contributed over $90,000 to the Red Cross and over $20,000 to other war funds.

The Illinois mine workers have made a fine showing in applied patriotism.

GOOD LUCK TO THE ANTI-BOLSHEVISTS OF KANSAS

SEPTEMBER 12, 1918

The absolute prerequisite for successful self-government in any people is the power of self-restraint which refuses to follow either the wild-eyed extremists of radicalism or the dull-eyed extremists of reaction. Either set of extremists will wreck the Nation just as certainly as the other. The Nation capable of self-government must show the Abraham Lincoln quality of refusing to go with either. The dreadful fall which has befallen Russia is due to the fact that when her people cast off the tyranny of the autocracy, they did not have sufficient self-control and common sense to avoid rushing into the gulf of Bolshevist anarchy.

In this country there are plenty of highbrow Bolsheviki who like to think of themselves as intellectuals, and who in parlors and at pink teas preach Bolshevism as a fad. They are fatuously ignorant that it may be a dangerous fad. Some of them are mere make-believe, sissy Bolsheviki, almost or quite harmless. Others are sincere and foolish fanatics, who mean well and who do not realize that their doctrines tend toward moral disintegration. But there are practical Bolsheviki in this country who are in no sense highbrows. The I.W.W. and the Non-Partisan League, just as long and so far as its members submit to the dominion of leaders like Mr. Townley, represent the forces that under Lenine and Trotzky have brought ruin to Russia. If these organizations obtained power here, they would cast this country into the same abyss with Russia.

The I.W.W. activities may have been officially set forth by the Chicago jury which found the I.W.W. leaders guilty of treasonable practices. These leaders protested that they were only trying to help “the wage slave of to-day,” and had not taken German money. But the jury found them guilty as charged. The American people, when fully awake and aroused, will tolerate neither treason nor anarchy. No Americans are more patriotic than the honest American labor men, and these above all had cause to rejoice in the verdict. Undoubtedly there are plenty of poor ignorant men who join the I.W.W. because they feel they do not receive justice. We should all of us actively unite in the effort to right any wrongs from which these men suffer. But we should set our faces like flint against such criminal leadership as that of the I.W.W.

The Non-Partisan League endeavored to ally itself with the I.W.W. since we entered the war. When the League was started, I felt much sympathy with its avowed purposes. I hope for and shall welcome wisely radical action on behalf of the farmer. But only destruction to all of us can come from the venomous class hatred preached by the present leadership of the League. Some of its leaders have been convicted and imprisoned for treasonable activities. Some of the League’s representatives have been actively pro-Germans. Some are Socialists or Socialist-Anarchists. For the first six months of the war and until it became too dangerous, they were openly against the war, against our allies, and for Germany. The only half-secret alliance between these leaders and certain high Democratic politicians is deeply discreditable to the latter. The victory of the League in its recent efforts to gain control of the Republican Party in Minnesota and Montana would have given immense strength to the pro-German and Bolshevist element throughout the country and its defeat was a matter of rejoicing to all right-minded and patriotic men.

Mr. Townley’s leadership in its moral purpose and national effect entitles him to rank with Messrs. Lenine and Trotzky, and the utterances of the League’s official organ, especially in its appeals to class hatred, puts the official representatives of the League squarely in the clan with the Bolshevist leaders who have done such evil in Russia.

I have before me an official letter from the League written in January last refusing to coöperate in non-political work for the benefit of the farmers, saying, “This organization is a political one, the farmers being organized for the purpose of controlling legislation in their own interests.” In other words, the title, Non-Partisan, is a piece of pure hypocrisy, and its league is really partisan in the narrowest and worst sense. Americans should organize politically as Americans and not as bankers, or lawyers, or farmers, or wage-workers. To organize politically on the basis adopted by the League is thoroughly anti-American and unpatriotic, and if copied generally by our citizens, would mean the creation in this country of rival political parties based on cynically brutal class selfishness.

I have no doubt that the rank and file of the members of the League are good, honest people who have been misled. I am certain that there has been much neglect of the rights of the farmers and that it is a high duty for this country to begin a constructive, practical agricultural policy. But no good American can support the League while it is dominated by its present leadership. The Kansans who have joined to fight the League because it represents Bolshevism are rendering a patriotic service to America.

THE FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN

SEPTEMBER 17, 1918

The Government of the United States is asking us Americans, is asking us, the citizens of the United States, to subscribe to the Fourth Liberty Loan, a bigger loan than any yet issued. It is our duty to back up the Government by floating the loan. Moreover, the performance of this duty should be treated by us as a high privilege. It opens to us a fine opportunity to put our shoulders with all the strength we have into the great shove which is pushing the German barrier back across the Rhine.

The Liberty bonds are the best of all possible investments. Their security and their interest returns give them a peculiar position. Moreover, every one can invest in big or little amounts, exactly as his resources permit. All the people of this country can now become bondholders if they wish. Therefore, all investors in the bonds will get benefits, but what is vastly more important, they will give benefits. They will therefore render service to the country.

We Americans are not, and must not permit ourselves to become, swayed by question of material gain in this war. We must think primarily of our duties. We must keep our minds fixed on what we owe to others, and what we owe to ourselves. We owe a service to humanity. Our sons and brothers at the front pay this service in blood. The rest of us must pay it in money.

Commensurate with the great resources and unparalleled prosperity with which our Nation has been blessed, we owe all the more because for three years the debt accumulated, while other nations were bearing the burden for us. We thank God we have begun to pay. From every village and city of every state the best of our young men are streaming across the Atlantic to join the victorious army under Foch and Pershing. The men and women of America are keeping mill and shipyard and munition factory and mine busy to the limit, so that the troops may not fail nor the supplies on which they depend be lacking.

All this is not one whit more than we ought to do; it is what we owe to the world and owe to ourselves. We are glad and proud to do it. Let us, as part payment of our great debt, subscribe and oversubscribe to the bonds of the Fourth Liberty Loan. This is a service which lies within the ability of the poorest of us. It is the duty and privilege of every right American. Every dollar put into Liberty loans is a dollar working for the downfall of the system of greed and treachery, of tyranny and callous brutality which has drenched the world in blood.

Americans are not quitters. The Kaiser’s troops cannot stop our men at the front. Nothing must be permitted to stop the flow into the treasury of the money with which we back up these men. Sloth and easy living have no place in America now. We must give, give to the utmost. If putting our money at the disposal of the Government requires us to work harder and live more simply, we shall be the better for it. Let us buy these Liberty bonds to the utmost of our capacity and thereby show the men at the front that the people at home will back them to the limit.

FAIR PLAY AND NO POLITICS

SEPTEMBER 20, 1918