Mr. Watson's Editorials ' On the War Issues UC: (REPRINTED FROM THE JEFFERSONIAN) Press of THE JEFFERSONIAN PUB. CO. THOMSON, GA, 1917 Mr. Watson's Editorials On the War Issues (Reprinted from TRe Jeffersonian) COMMON SENSE COMMENTS ON THE GREAT WAR In order that you may have in your mind a picture of the kattle-field in Northern France, where four millions of Chris- tians, (supplied with Bibles, chaplains, and regular prayers, on each side) are murdering one another, according to Presi- dent Wilson's "proud punctilio," I will ask you to reflect upon a few of the actual facts. First of all, you must realize that the length of the battle- line is only about 50 miles, and its width less than ten. Try to imagine the crowding of that small territory by four million men, tens of thousands of horses; millions of cannon, motor cars, trucks, wagons, piles of ammunition, food depots, sleeping quarters, field-hospitals, &c. Imagine the vast net-work of trenches, in which the men on duty at the front have to live, sleep, and fight. Imagine a deafening roar of cannon-thunder, lasting all night and all day, every day in the week, every week in the month. Imagine tens of thousands of soldiers making charges, every few hours, on several parts of this short battle-line ; and imagine those soldiers falling, under the terrible fire of can- non, machine-guns, rifles, and hand-grenades. Imagine at least one hundred thousand of these soldiers killed along that short line, every month; and twice as many wounded. The wounded, of course, are carried to the rear, sent to hospitals, and treated perhaps with every possible considera- tion. But what about the dead? There is no place to hury them, and no time for it. (3) 589145 All the ground is cut up into trenches: there is no room for burial on separate soil. What, then, becomes a dreadful military necessity? The corpses must he filed up, like so many cords of wood, soaked dn kerosene oil, and burnt to ash.es. In the Augusta Herald, of last Sunday, appears the fol- v'mg, burned : lowing, which shows that some of the heroic soldiers are not Germany is making soap, oils, fertilizer and pig-feed out of slain soldiers' bodies. Reports of rendering plants for human flesh have been pub- lished before, but nev/spapers from Germany and Holland, just re- ceived, contain details of this horrible industry never told in America. From Belgians who have been deported into Germany to work, and who have escaped, the newspaper "La Belgique," published in Loyden, Holland, obtains details, which are included in the follow- ing article: "We have known for long that the Germans stripped their dead behind the firing line, fastened them into bundles of three or four bodies with iron wire, and then dispatched these grisly bundles to the rear. "Until recently the trains laden with the dead were sent to Seraing, near Liege, and a point ncrth of Brussels, where were refuse consumers. "German science is responsible for the ghoulish idea of the for- mation of the German Offal-Conversion Company, Ltd. ('D. A. V. G.') or 'Deutsche Abfall-Gerwertung Gasellschaft'), a dividend- earning company with a capital of $1,250,000, the chief factory of v/hich has been constructed 1,000 yards from the railway connect- ing St. Vith, near the Belgian frontier, with Gerolstein, in the lonely, little-frequented Eifel district, southwest of Coblcntz. "The factory deals specially with the dead from the west front. If the results are as good as the company hopes, another will be established to deal with corpses on the east front. "The trains arrive full of bare bodies, which are unloaded by the workers, who live at the works. "The men wear oilskin overalls and masks with mica eyepieces. They are equipped with long hooked poles and push the bundles of bodies to aii endless chain which picks them up with big hooks, attached at intervals of two feet. "The bodies are transportea on this endless chain into a long, narrow compartment, where they pass through a scalding bath which disinfects them. They then go through a drying chamber and finally are automatically carried into a digester or great cauldron, in which they are dropped by an apparatus which detaches them from the chain. In the digecter thoy remain from six to eight hours, and are treated by steam, which breaks them up, while they are slowly stirred by machineiy. The bones sink to the bottom, leaving a thick, dark-colored liquid. Southern Pamphlets Rare Book Collecti6n UNC-Chape] JJ^'^ 5 "From this treatment result several products. The fats are broken up into stearlno, a form of tallow, and oils, which require to be re-distilled before they can be used. The process of distilla- tion is carried out by boiling the oil with carbonate of soda, and some part of the by-products resulting from this is used by German soap makers.'' Not from neutral Holland, but from a great newspaper printed in Germany itself — the Berlin Lckalanzeiger — come otill more start- ling details of the uses made of extracts from human flesh. Karl Rosner, special Lokalanzeiger correspondent with the armies on the western front, states there is, north of Rheims, a German factory for "converting corpses" into lubricating oils, fer- tilizers and fodder for pigs. The fertilizers are obtained from the refuse and bones, ground together. The foregoing reads like a description of a Chicago pack- ing-house, where hogs are handled by machinery; and vs^here if a workman happens to fall into the boiling vats, he is made up into lard, or sausage, along with the other stulf. It is certainly a grewsome thought, that our gallant young men, conscripted to fight the Germans, may be made into soap, oil, fertilizer, and hog-feed. The German troops cannot help themselves. For 30 years they have been ruthlessly drilled into blind obedience: their Kaiser and their "nobly-born" officers have so persistently treated them as if they were senseless automatons, that they are senseless automatons. Their military system made them so. They do not dare to protest,*when they are ordered to feed the cannon and the machine guns with more human fodder: they dumbly go, and they bravely die. For what? They do not know, and dare not inquire. The English troops are volunteers: they had been made to believe — perhaps correctly — that German success against France would mean the ruin of England. At any rate, they are at the battle-line voluntarily, and they can tell you why they volunteered. The Frenchmen, standing on their own soil, know why they are fighting. They are prompted by the noblest patriotism that ever inspires soldiers — the same that nerved the heroes of Marathon, of Bannockburn, of King's Mountain, of York- town, of Manassas, and of Gettysburg. They are heating hack the invaders of their homes. When men fight on that principle, the foundation is gran- ite, the cause is holy, and the sacrifice immortal. So much for the armies engaged. But what about an American army going over? What about burning a few thousand cords of dead Amer- icans ? What about a carload of German soap, made out of our boys? What about manuring German fields with our bravest youth, and fattening German hogs on the choicest selection from American manhood? "I raised my boy to be a soldier!" says the song; but did mother raise him to be pig-feed? Was it for service in Europe, that American parents reared their sons, paid for their education, and prepared them for life? Is the end of all their parental love, care, and ambition to be, a ghastly contribution to a pile of corpses in France, soaked in kerosene, and fired like a stack of wood? Is there somewhere, in the soul of things^ an imperative de- mand for a supreme American sacrifice, admonishing us to acquiesce, humbly and unquestioningly, when autocratic au- thority violates the Constitution of the United States^ and orders the flower of young American manhood to cut loose from home, loved ones, and country, and to cheerfully take the road which leads to the horrible factories where dead sol- diers are converted into oil for machiRery and food for hogs? What got us into the War? I thought we Democrats re-elected Professor Wilson, to keep u^ out. Isn't that your understanding? It hurts my feelings to hear a man-r-who voted for Wil- son because "he kept us out of war" — now say, "he kept us out, as long as he couldy Didn't Germany do her worst, before the November elec- tion? She certainly did. What has she done, since? As soon as Wilson had "kissed the Book," at his second inauguration, he drew his sword on the Kaiser. What for? I'd love to see somebody run a sword clean through the Kaiser; but this feeling was strongest just after he murdered the non-combatant tourists on the passenger ship Lusitania. He has never done anythin, since, half so atrocious as that, and he never can do anything worse. If President Wilson didn't hit him then, why hit him nowf Why was it all postponed imtil after the election? Why make war on account of crimes that we condoned? It was after the German crimes of 1914 and 1915, that Ambassador Gerard — fresh from a visit to President Wilson — made the banquet speech in Berlin, telling the Kaiser's gov- ernment that the friendly relations between them and us were never better ! What new departure from her war policies and practises did Germany make, after that? She didnH make any. What motives are leading our Republic into this furious world- war? What do we seek? What German possession do we covet? Wliat has she done to us, that our Navy is unable to avenge and redress and rectify ? For Heaven's sake, think it over! Don't get drunk on words, by absorption. Try to fix your mind on actual facts. What dangers threaten us? Where are we attacked? How came we to be involved in this European maelstrom? No German soldier has harmed us. No German army faces us. The wide, wide ocean rolls between us. German troops are battling for dear life, right now, to keep from hav- ing to re-cross the Rhine. Every gun, every iiorse, every man that Germany can bring up, has been brought up, to bar the avenging French out of German territory. Don^t you know that? Can't our ruling powers see it? Why, then, should we compel our young men to go to Eu- rope, when no part of Europe can possibly come against us? The idea of German soldiers attacking us, is monstrous It would be laughable, if the tragic element were not so ter- ribly predominant. Germany assail us? God in Heaven ! Germany's night-mare, right now, is the vision of the infuriated Frenchman, on the German side of the Rhine, wreaking his pent-up wrath upon German mothers, wives, daughters, and helpless children, in retaliation for the indescribable horrors which German soldiers have inflicted upon the innocent non-combatants of France. Another article in the Augusta Herald, last Sunday, begp.n thus: London (By Mail). — "I live now for only one thing, for I hava lost everything — my husband, my sons, my home, my only daugh- ter, who was ruined by a German devil. I am going to pray to 8 President F. .^care that one day he will give a German into my hands, that I may tear out his eyes with my own fingers." That is what an old French woman said to Miss E. Almaz Stout, in the region just reconquered by the British from the Germans. Miss Stout has just come from that stricken portion of France. She brought back with her memories of terrible scenes, awful suffering and hardship, and a people stricken wantonly to earth as their German foes retreated. I spare you the details. Do you suppose that the consuming hatred, burning in the old French woman's heart, is absent from the hearts of the French soldiers? And can you imagine that the Germans do not know what they may expect, when the turn of the Frenchman comes ? They do know what to expect, and they are fighting fran- tically, straining ever}^ nerve, to stave oft' that fearful day of French revenge ! Seeing actual conditions as I do, through the metropolitan papers of the East and North, I have scant patience with Americans who have gone wild at the Bugaboo of a German invasion. A friend out in Texas presents a view which doubtless prevails wideJy: Dear Sir: Granted that Germany secures a victory over her enemies, and demands the possession of their navies as the price of that victory. She then comes into possession of the English, the French, and the Italian navies. These and her own are practically unimpaired. Would she be able to unite these fleets and assail, successfully, our Atlantic Sea Ports and the Panama Canal? Would she, in fact, have to land an army of conquest in order to demand and enforce of us the payment of her vast war debt? Would our navy and land fortifications enable us to preserve such cities as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Baltimore, and on down the line to Galveston? And what about Tampico, and the Mexican oil supply? Let us have your views on the above statements and questions in the Jeff. Yours truly, The writer is a gentleman who is far above the average in education and intelligence. Let us reason together: // "Germany secures a victory." Must we plunge into the war, with no better footing than aniT'i Let me answer, with an "^7," or two. If Germany couldn't secure a victory when she caught England napping, how can she hope to secure it now, after England has raised an army of five million men ? If Germany could not secure a victory when she was ad- vancing upon Paris with all her banners flying, how can she hope to do it now, when her disasters have cost the lives of a million of her best troops, and when she is no longe.- able to regain any lost ground? If the German people, full fed and full ready, could not defeat France^— aZmos^^ taKen by surprise — how can she now hope to do it, when the German people are exhausted, half- starved, and heart-sick of the War? If Germany could not secure a victory when her allies were whole-hearted in their unity, how can she now hope to do it, when Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria are separately intriguing for peace, through the pope? Why should the United States, near the end of the third year of the war, when Germany is losing on all fronts, be more afraid of her than we were during the first year, when she was victorious on all fronts? Her fleet ventured out once, and then limped back, to stay. Not a German flag is to be seen on all the seas. Her raiders have been sunk; her battleships driven to shel- ter, and bottled up ; her merchant fleet annihilated. Her submarines sink a few fishing smacks, and freight schooners. That's all. Five thousand vessels go in and out of the English ports, every week: the submarines have never sunk as many as 40 a week, of these real ships of the merchant marine Forty out of 5,000 ! And the English ship-yards are turning out new ships, faster than the German U-boats can sink the old ones ! So, you see, when we reason together, the danger of Ger- man victory, and German conquest of all the fleets, fades into nothingness. (Since the above was written, the sinkings of English ves- sels has dropped to 15 a week ! ) The New York TForZc?— staunchest of Democratic Wilson papers— had an account last week of the profits which young J. P. Morgan had thus far made out of the war. The amount was ninety million dollars. A long life of Wall Street piracy had given the elder Mor- gan a fortune of $75,000,000. He had enjoyed succulent favors from many Presidents, and had put his honest little sickle into many a luscious bond- deal, including that midnight deal with his ex-attornev, Presi- dent Cleveland. But the Civil War bonds, the many refunding shuffles, the 10 Central of Georgia Railroad manipulations, the Steel Trust organization, and sundry other virtuous brigandages and cor- sairages. had left the old man blessed in worldlj^ goods to the extent of only $75,000,000. The son of Morgan, the Wall Street Pirate, was a basketful of chips oft* the paternal block ; and, as luck would have it, the European War commenced almost at the same time that these paternal chips got into the Street. In less than three years, the younger Morgan has made, out of the War, more than his honored and lamented father made out of the Civil War, the Spanish- American War, the Panama hand-made "Revolution;" the Chinese War, and three well-grown Panics^ two of which Morgan himself pre- cipitated. Ninety million dollars in three years, comes to thirty a year, or more than two millions a month. The New York World reports that Morgan made $18,000,- 000 on one loan for the Allies, "floated" by him at the modest rate of 12 per cent commission. I guess he owns a Life Insurance Company, bought the paper of the Allies with his Insurance surplus, and put the commission in his private pocket. Now, when you regard Morgan as a type, rather than as an individual, and remember that he represents the greed of soulless Capitalists incorporated by law, favored by legisla- tion ever since the War between the States, fortified by court decisions made by lawyers whom they elevated to the bench, and constantly guarded from the peril of reformatory measures by their docile serfs in the Governmental livery, you can begin to see what are the selfishly sordid sources of all this fanatical clamor for an American army in Europe. What do such Capitalists care, if a hundred thousand of your sons are freighted to German factories, and boiled into oil, made into soap, mixed for fertilizer, or prepared as pig- feed? My countrymen! The deadliest danger to your country and to your liberties lies on this side of the ocean. American Prussianism is not aimed at German Prussia: it is aimed at the plundered American producers; and aimed hy the plundering non-producers. The Standing Army is to be built up, on the Prussian model, for the purpose of maintaining and perpetuating an infernal system of class-legislation, which enriches the non- producing classes, by the pillage of the producing masses. The Standing Army's real purpose is, to support a heart- 11 less Aristocracy of Dollars, whose patents of nobility are writ- ten in the "laws" which confer Special Privileges upcm incor- porated wealth. You see a few grey-headed men sitting on the side-walk, or on the piazza of the cross-roads store: ask them how the world of today compares with the world that they lived in, before the War between the States. They will tell you, that the world of today is altogether different. Everything is changed, and not for the better. Before 1860, there were no price-fixing Trusts; no monop- olies intrenched in Federal legislation; no railroad lawyers controlling the courts ; no gag-laws threatening the press ; no legalized Money Trust financing gigantic Speculations which rob the people ; no huge national debt devouring in taxes the substance of the producers; no artificial inequalities in the distribution of the common wealth, caused by congressional laws which enable one class to despoil all the others; no stu- pendous fortunes heaped up by law on one side of the street, while the other side of the same street is littered with the piti- ful wrecks of wronged humanity. No ! None of these terrible conditions existed before the War of the Sixties. The tears will fill the eyes of the old folks as they tell you how different the country used to be. What changed it so? The War. The Spanish- American War gave another tremendous im- pulse to Imperialism, Centralism, Capitalism, Special Priv- ilege, and Dollar Autocracy. _ Under President Wilson, those consolidating tendencies have been enormously advanced. No check whatever has been placed upon the Supreme Sovereignty of the Specially Priv- ileged Dollar. And now those Sovereign Dollars, mad with insatiable lust for more, are driving you headlong into the vastest whirlpool known to history; and not one of your sentinels upon the watch-tower has the foresight and courage to warn you of the breakers ahead. It is sad beyond words. In the most appalling crisis of our national life, we look in vain for A Man. We yearn for a leader — a Saul whose head lifts itself above 12 the crowd ; a strong man who has the eye to see, and the soul that is not afraid. But we yearn vainly. We have no strong njan. We have no leader. We have no statesman at the helm. Once upon a time, Daniel Webster stood forth in the Sen- ate, challenged the Federal Administration, and said with a voice that no President dared to ignore — "y^M have no constitutional right to conscript American citizens into an armyy The greatest constitutional lawyer that ever lived spoke thus to President Madison, during the War of 1812; and the conscription bill died, under Webster's herculean blows. True, the Union conscripted men in the third year of the Civil War, when the Republic was in the throes of a titanic civil convulsion; but it was done as an extreme, self-preserv- ing war measure. No such imperative necessity exists now. No such imperative necessity can ever again arise. Then y:hy conscript a million men? The Catholic prelates are publicly jubilant over the fact, that they have already made our Navy 40 per cent Eomanist. Nearly one -half! Protestant evangelism has been barred out of the Army, and of course it has no chance at the battle-ship: therefore, Kome and Militarism march together toward Autocracy. A discouraged Georgia merchant writes me — My Dear Sir: Just read your paper. Notice you printeu petition for people to sign and forward to Congress, asking not to be sent across to Europe to be slaughtered, &c. Do you know the people have given up everything that smacks of freedom? We don't feel that there is use to do anything. Our manhood is gone, we feel like sheep waiting for the slaughter. What good is there in signing and mailing petitions to Congress? Do they care to know the will of constituents? Or will they learn the will of "Higher Ups?" In fact, half the people — "fresh g'-own ups" — don't know or care what the Constitution says. The other half have given up the fight. We are now waiting to be offered up, and for what? It seems to me that the Czar of Russia was badly treated. So far as I ever heard, he hadn't legalized a Money Trust, jBnanced a colossal Cotton gamble, destroyed a constitutional military system, demanded despotic power over prices, or in- sisted upon the gagging of public opinion. 13 'The poor little Czar Kad not laid tremendous taxes upon the Russians, in order to show himself off as the lender of hundreds of millions of dollars to England, France, Italy, and Belgium. Having had four years of Woodrow Wilson, I wonder how we would now enjoy a few years under Kaiser William. I can't remember that this German autocrat ever taxed his own people, to get money to lend out to foreign nations. It has escaped my fickle recollection, if the Kaiser ever ran his boot through the German constitution. Did autocratic William ever smite, with his mailed fist, the reserved rights of the 25 German States ? I don't recall it. Did the President have the constitutional authority to order the State militia into Mexico ? He had not. Did Congress have the constitutional authority to tax this country, to raise money to lend to Europe? It had not. Has Congress the constitutional authority to adopt com- pulsory military service? It has not. Has the Federal Government the power, under the Consti- tution, to raise armies by conscription? It has not. That question was debated and settled, in the War of 1812, and it is therefore res adjudicata. When Mr. Lincoln's administration was forced to resort to conscription during the third year of the Civil War, it was a ivar measure, like the suspension of Habeas Corpus, and the Emancipation of the slaves. President Lincoln did not pretend that he was proceeding constitutionally. In our day, we Democrats are so eager to be usurpers, that we adopt a foreign war, to get a chance to demolish the Con- stitution. Don't you reckon Thomas Jefferson turned over in his grave, when Son-in-law McAdoo handed the British visitor that little check for $250,000,000, as a loan out of our taxes? Don't you reckon Daniel Webster would have had a stroke of apoplexy, if President Andrew Jackson had proposed to lay taxes on the American people, to raise loans for England ? Don't you reckon Grover Cleveland would have had a fit, if he had been asked to tax America for foreign accommoda- tion? We first lend foreign nations hundreds of millions of dol- lars, because they snarled themselves into a universal tangle. 14 and then we propose to lend them hundreds of thousands of soldiers. In other words,. we do their banking and their fighting, just as though the War had been started by ourselves. Our Government plays cat to the European monkey, and rakes chestnuts out of the fire, for the monkey. And some folks call it statesmanship! ■ It didn't use to go by that name. LITTLE NOTES ON THE GREAT WAR In round numbei-s, the amount of money that Uncle Sam has loaned to foreign nations, is five thousand millions of dollars. The North American States which declared themselves in- dependent sovereigns, on July 4, 1776 — and which were ac- knowledged to be such by Great Britain — afterwards met in convention, by State delegations, and created a Federal Gov- ernment, for specified purposes. These purposes were such as the States could not well deal with, separately, without conflicting laws, varying systems, and consequent confusion. The States desired a Federal agency, or government, for the establishment of uniformity in our relations with foreign powers, uniformity in the currency system, the postal system, the commercial system, the naturalization of foreigners, the enactment of laws relating to commerce, and the raising of armies to repel i7ivasion, suppress insurrection, and enforce the laws of the Union. To enable the newly-created Federal agency, or govern- ment, to carry out the foregoing purposes — for which the sov- ereign States had voluntarily created it — the Federal Union was empowered to levy taxes directly upon the people, instead of calling upon the States for what was needed. Eealizing that these taxes would be insufficient, sometimes, the sovereign States authorized the Federal Union to borrow money. Consult any constitutional lawyer, and he will tell you that the foregoing outline gives you substantially the truth about the origin and character of our Federal Government. This being undeniable, you can readily see what a tre- mendous usurpation has been accomplished, when the Federal \ 15 Union takes from the people enormous sums of money, to lend to foreign nations. Why didn't the Democratic party produce A Man, who would stand up in Congress, and fight this tremendous usur- pation ? Because President Wilson calls himself a Democrat, and his own so-called Democrats cannot fight their Chief. Why didn't the Republican party produce men enough to combat the usurpation? Because the Republican party believes in a centralized Federal Government which usurps power, and tramples upon the States and the people. Dmocracy, the name, hypnotizes the Democrats; while au- tocracy, the thing, charms the Republicans. It's as it used to be with Prohibition, in Kansas : the Drys liked the situation, because they had the law; and the Wets liked it, because they had the liquor. When Daniel Webster successfully opposed the conscrip- tion law of 1814, he illustrated his unanswerable argument by asking his brother Senators, whether the constitutional au- thority to borrow money could be distorted by the Govern- ment into a tyrannical power to force a loan from the people. He argued that the Federal Government had no more legal right to force the citizen into the Army, than it had to force him to lend his money to the Government. Can you answer the argument? Can anybody do so? Let one of our War-whoop dailies try it! Mr. Webster's speech was made to the Senate on Decem- ber 9, 1814. The weight of his reasoning was so great, that it killed the bill for conscription. At that time, the country was in distress, because the War with England had lasted two years, and the Eastern States had refused to contribute troops. Less than four months before Webster made his speech against conscription, the British had scattered our forces at Bladensburg, had looted and burned the public buildings of Washington City, and had chased President Madison into the Virginia backwoods. Yet, Congress refused conscription, even under those trying circumstances. In other words. Congress refused to hecome an odious, tyrannical usurper. Congress relied upon the patriotic volunteer, and the vol- unteer did not fail his country in its hour of need. 16 Even as Daniel Webster spoke in the Senate, with the ruins of the British invasion all around him, the Southern volun- teers, led by Andrew Jackson, were marshalling their rifles for the bloody victory of New Orleans, won SO days after Congress killed conscription. Why are the papers belittling the heroic volunteer, who used to be the subject of song and story, of the artist's brush and the sculptor's chisel? Look at your great historic paintings, commemorating the triumphs of our War of Independence — who are the heroic figures painted there, for the admiration of all future gen- erations ? They are volunteers ! Nobody conscripted George Washington, and Nathaniel Greene. No act of Congress infused patriotic valor into Francis Marion, Israel Putnam, Dr. Warren, Col. Prescott, Harry Lee, Daniel Morgan, John Eagar Howard, John Sevier, Elijah Clark, David Twiggs, and sturdy old General Lincoln. They were all volunteers. How can we now sneer at the volunteer, ridicule him, and cartoon him, without defiling the monuments of Nathan Hale, of Gen. Sumter, of Paul Jones, of Commodore Perry, of the heroes of Lexington, of the patriots of King's Mountain? God in Heaven ! Some secret, subtle, sinister influence seems to be systematically at work, with diabolical art, to change the ivhole American mind. The very things that used to be held in highest reverence, are now being defamed. The papers and cartoonists demean the very men and things that used to inspire the orator, the artist, the poet, and the historian. How do you explain it ? The fact, is patent : what is the hidden motive? General Lee was not a conscript: he was the volunteer commander of the finest army the world ever saw — the volun-^ teer Atmy of Northern Virginia! General Grant was not a conscript, nor were his best sol- diers forced into the ranks: they were volunteers. The Union troops conscripted in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, and Chicago did not compare, in heroic earnestness, with the volunteers of the West, and the volunteers who left the Southern mountains to fight for the old flag. Why should the Prussian militarists of today desecrate the graves of the volunteer patriots, of both sides, who gave their 17 lives at Manassas, at Shiloh, and in the Battles around Rich- mond ? It will be the worst of bad days, when the concealed movers of the puppet editors and puppet Congressmen succeed in con- vincing the American people, that the only respectable gov- ernment is based upon the idea that the people have no intelli- gence, no patriotism, no spontaneous courage, but must be driven, by acts of legislation, into blind obedience to the united powers of Capitalism and Catholicism. For you must be stone blind, if you do not see that the blackest agencies of the Roman church are desperately co- operating with incorporated, privileged, and aggressive Capi- talism. My words may carry no weight : I am only one little editor, of a small interior town, discredited by the Great, because I advocated, too soon, the measures they afterwards had to appropriate. But while my words carry no weight, perhaps those of Daniel Webster may; and I will lay before you the gist of what he said against conscription, at a time when British troops were fighting on our own soil, when British ships were bombarding our forts, and when British wreckage strewed the public places of Washington City: But, Sir, there is another consideration. The services of the men to be raised under this act are not limited to those cases in which alone this government is entitled to the aid of the militia of the States. These cases are particularly stated in the Constitution — "to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, or execute the) laws." But this bill has no limitation in this respect. This, then, Sir, is a bill for calling out the Miltia not according to its existing organization, but by draft from new created classes — not merely for the purpose of repelling invasion, suppressing insurrection, or executing the laws, but for the general objects of war. What is this. Sir, but raising a standing army out of the Militia by draft, and to be recruited by draft, in like manner, as often as occasions require? This bill, then, is not different in principle from the other bills, plans, and resolutions which I have mentioned. The present dis- cussion is properly and necessarily common to them all. It is a discussion. Sir, of the last importance. That measures of this na- ture should be debated at all, in the councils of a free government, is a cause of dismay. The question is nothing less than whether the most essential rights of personal liberty shall be surrendered, and despotism embraced in its worst form. I have risen, on this occasion, with anxious and painful emotions, to add my admonitions to what has been said by others. Admoni- 18 tion and remonstrance, I am aware, are not acceptable strains. They are duties of unpleasant performance. I am anxious above all things, to stand acquitted before God, and my conscience, and in the public judgments, of all participation in the Counsels, which have brought us to our present condition and which now threaten the dissolution of the government. When the present generation of men shall be swept away and that this government ever existed shall be a matter of history only, I believe that it may then be known that you have not proceeded in your course unadmonished and unforewarned. Let it then be known that there were those, who would have stopped you, in the career of your measures, and hold you back, as by the skirts of your gar- ments, from the precipice, over which you are plunging, and draw- ing after the government of your Country. Let us examine the nature and extent of the power which is assumed by the various military measures before us. In the present want of men and money, the Secretary of War has proposed to Congress a Military Conscription. For the conquest of Canada the people will not enlist, and if they would the treasury is exhausted and they could not be paid. Conscription is chosen as the most promising instrument, both of overcoming the *reluctance to the Service, and of subduing the difficulties which arise from the de- ficiencies of the exchequer. The administration asserts the right to fill the ranks of the Regular Army by compulsion. It contends that it may now take one out of every twenty-five men, and any part or whole of the rest, whenever its occasions require. Persons thus taken by force and put into an army may be compelled to serve there, during the war, or for life. They may be put on any service, at home or abroad, for defense or for invasion, according to the will and pleasure of the government. Is this. Sir, consistent with the character of a free- government? Is this civil liberty? Is this the real character of our constitution? No, Sir, indeed it is not. The Constitution is libelled, foully libelled. The people of this country have not established for themselves such a fabric of despotism. They have not purcjiased at a vast expense of their own treasures and their own blood a Magna Charta to be slaves. Where it is written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children and compel them to fight the battles of any war which the folly or the wickedness of government may en- gage it? Under what concealment has this power lain hidden which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest rights of personal liberty? Who will show me any constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the Amreican people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life itself, not when the safety of their country and its liberties may demand the sacrifice, but whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may re- quire it? Sir, I almost disdain to go to quotations and references to prove that such an abominable doctrine has no foundation in the Constitution of the country. It is enough to know that that instru- ment was intended as the basis of a free government, and that the pow«r contended for is incompatible with any notion of personal 19 liberty An attempt to maintain this doctrine upon the provisions of the Constitution is an exercise of perverse ingenuity to extract slavery from the substance of a free government. It is an attempt to show by proof and argument, that we ourselves are subjects of despotism and that we have a right to chains and bondage, firmly secured to us and our children by the provisions of our government. It has been the labor of other men at other times, to mitigate and reform the powers of government by construction, to support the rights of personal security by every species of favorable and benign interpretation, and thus to infuse a free spirit into governments not friendly in their general structure and formation to public liberty. ^ ^^ .. The supporters of the measures before us act on the opposite principle It is theii- task to raise arbitrary powers, by construction, out of a plain written charter of National Liberty. It is their pleas- ing duty to free us of the delusion, which we have fondly cherished, that we are the subjects of a mild, free, and limited government, and to demonstrate by a regular chain of premises and conclusions, that government possesses over us a power more tyranmcal, more arbitrary, more dangerous, more allied to blood and murder, more fuU of every form of mischief, more productive of every sort of misery, than has been exercised by any civilized government, with one exception, in modem times. Congress having, by the Constitution, a power to raise armies, the Secretary contends that no restraint is to be imposed on the exercise of this power, except such as is expressly stated in the written letter of the instrument. In other words, that Congress may execute its powers by any means it chooses, unless such means are particularly prohibited. But the general nature and object of the Constitution impose as rigid restriction on the means of exer- cising potver as could be done by the most explicit injunctions. It is the first principle applicable to such a case, that no construction shall be admitted which impairs the general nature and character of the instrument. A free Constitution of government is to be con- strued upon free principles, and every branch of its provisions is to receive such an interpretation as is full of its general spirit. No means are to be takne by implication, which would strike us ab- surdly if expressed. And what would have been more absurd, than for this conbstitution to have said, that to secure the great blessings of liberty It gave to government an uncontroUed power of military conscription? Yet such is the absurdity which it is made to exhibit under the commentary of the Secretary of War. A compulsory loan is not to be compared, in point of enormity, with a compulsoi-y military service. If the Secretary of War has proved the right of Congress to enact a law enforcing a draft of men out of the Militia into the regular Army, he will at any time be able to prove quite as clearly that Congress has power to create a Dictator. The arguments which have helped him in one ease, will equally help him in the other. The same reason of a supposed or possible state necessity which is urged now, may be repeated then with equal pertinency and effect. Sir, in granting Congress the power to raise armies, the People have granted all the means which are ordinary and usual, and which are consistent with the liberties and security of the People themselves, and they have granted no others. To talk about the unlimited power of the government over the means to execute its 20 authority, is to hold a language which is tme only in regard to despotisms. The tyranny of Arbitrary Government consists as much In its means as in its ends, and it would be a ridiculous and absurd constitution which should be less cautious to guard against abuses in the one case than in the other. All the means and instruments which a free government exercises, as well as the ends and objects it pursues, are to partake of its own essential character, and to be conformed to its genuine spirit. A free government, 'ivith arbitrary means to administer it, is a contradiction: a free government, with- out adequate provisions for personal security, is an absurdity: a free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscrip- tion is a solecism, at once the most ridiculous and abominable that ever entered into the head of man. Who shall describe to you the horror which your orders of Conscription shall create in the once happy villages of this country? Who shall describe the anguish and distress which they will spread over those hills and valleys, where men have, heretofore, been accustomed to labor and to rest in security and happiness. Antici- pate the scene. Sir, when the class shall assemble to stand its draft and to throw tlie dice for blood. What a group of wives and mothers and sisters, of helpless age and helpless infancy, shall gather round the theatre of this horrible lottery, as if the strokes of death were to fall from heaven before their eyes, on a father, a son, or a hus- band. And in the majority of cases. Sir, it will be a stroke of death. Under present prospects of a continuance of the war, not one-half of them on whom your conscription shall fall, will ever return to tell the tale of their sufferings. They will perish of disease and pestilence, or they will leave their bones to whiten in fields beyond the frontier. Does the lot fall on the father of a family? His children, already orphans, shall see his face no more. When they behold him for the last time they shall see him lashed and fettered, and dragged away from his o>vn threshold, like a felon and an outlaw. Does it fall on a son, the hope and staflf of aged parents? That hope shall fail them. On that staff they shall lean no longer. They shall not enjoy the happi- ness of dying before their children. They shall totter to their graves, bereft of their offspring, and unwept by any who inherit their blood. Does it fall on a husband? The eyes which watch his parting steps may svpim in tears forever. She is a wife no longer. There is no relation so tender or so sacred, that, by these accursed measures, you do not propose to violate it. Into the paradise of domestic life you enter, not indeed by temptations and sorceries, but by open force and violence. * * * Nor is it. Sir, for the defense of his own house and home that he is subject to military draft is to perform the task allotted to him. Thus spoke the greatest constitutional lawyer this country ever produced. His argument killed the conscription hill. He asserted, with statesmanly foresight and wisdom, that the same usurped powers which create an Army by conscrip- tion, could with equal ease create a Dictator. Hasn't this Congress carried, in one hand, a Conscription bill, and, in the other, a bill to give the President the unlimited 21 authority to gag the press and fix the prices of all commodi- ties? Isn't that the same as vesting him with the despotic power of a Dictator? No king that ever lived wielded more autocratic control than President Wilson has demanded! The European War has already intimidated free speech, and made the average citizen afraid to sign a Petition to the Government^ although the U. S. Constitution guarantees him that right, forever. The War has also furnished the enemies of free press with the excuse for giving the Postmatser- General autocratic power to 7mle papers and magazines out of the m^ails, thus taking away a man's property without any proceeding in court, and robbing him arbitrarily of one of the most valuable rights of citizenship. The wise Frenchman, De Tocqueville, who wrote a great book, a hundred years ago, on "Democracy in America," said — In countries where the doctrine of the sovereignty of the people prevails, the censorship of the press is not only dangerous, but ab- surd. When the right of every citizen to a share in the government or society is acknowledged, every one must be presumed to be able to choose between the various opinions of his contemporaries, and to appreciate the different facts from which inferences may be dra^vn. The sovereignty of the people and the liberty of the press may therefore be regarded as correlative; just as the censorship of the press and universal suffrage are two things which are irrecon- cilably opposed, and which cannot long be retained among the insti- tutions of the same people. Even the abuses of the press must be tolerated. Tracing the steps possible in any attempt to repress them, he con- cludes : And now you have succeeded, everybody is reduced to silence. But your object was to repress the abuses of liberty, and you are brought to the feet of a despot. You have been led from the ex- treme of independence to the extreme of servitude, without finding a single tenable position on the way at wMch you could stop. Anonymous letters warn me against expressing a free man's opinions against conscription, against Wilsonian autocracy, and against Prussian militarism which is being introduced under the mask of democracy. Do these anonymous warners mean to say, that I am not to exercise as much freedom of speech as Benj. H. Hill did, 22 when he. spoke in Atlanta against Federal usurpations, during the evil days of Reconstruction? Are we to be railroaded into a Capitallistic-Catholic despot- ism, without even the privilege of a protest? It seems that the volunteer patriots of 1776 were a deluded lot of lunatics ; and that the heroes of the Protestant Reforma- tion were guilty of a heinous crime in revolting against Papal- ism. Volunteer patriotism is now a mockery and a byeword; while a Protestant who dares to protest against the steady encroachments of modern popery, is a traitor whose mouth must be closed by an arrest, or whose publication must be thrown out of the mails. After having paid their visit to the President, some mem- bers of the British Comimlssion, which came over to stimulate us to answer the British cry for "Help," motored down to Baltimore, to pay their respect to the American General of the Jesuits. Prince James Gibbons received his English courtiers, with urbane graciosity, wined and dined them in his palace, and sent them back to Washington chortling with satisfaction. What has England ever done for us, that we should now do so much for her? And what has Gibbons got to do with it? The daily War- Whoops, and Semi- weekly War-Dances, and weekly Steam-whistles all tell us that we never before faced such a crisis. "^Vho made this crisis? What interests worked it up? Why did the British Commissioners make such a point of quickly conferring with Cardinal Gibbons? Bless goodness ! we've been at war with Germany for more than three months, and Germanv hasn't paid the slightest at- tention to us. Germany goes right along fighting on the same old battle- field, burning a few hundred thousand slain enemies, and making soap-grease out of the others, and she doesn't seem to know or care what sort of monkey doings we are up to. Germany won't come over and fight us; and therefore we will go over, and fight her. To cross a pond 3,000 miles wide, hunting for trouble, is one way to bring on a "crisis." "Never before have we had such a crisis" — say the daily War- Whoops and the weekly War-Dances. No, indeed : never before did we travel into foreign lands, hunting for one. 23 Son-in-law McAdoo is almost becoming irritated, over the failure of the people to invest in his preliminary bond-issue of two thousand millions of dollars. By the time the average man pays for something to eat, and something to wear — and his rent, road-tax, poll-tax, school-book bills, and a few other little sky-high necessaries — ^he is not "so situated" that he can lend the Government two thousand million dollars. Speaking for the Southern States, I can say, that Brother McAdoo helped the Speculators skin us so artistically^ on 6- cent cotton, that we haven't had much loose change in our pockets since. It's all we can do to pay 10 cents apiece for biscuits, 25 cents for hoecakes, and 20 cents a pound for sow-belly. When Brother McAdoo loaned the Speculator $30 to buy our bale of cotton with, and then handed the same Specu- lator an Insurance policy of $70 on the same bale, we got a bitter taste in our mouths, and it's there yet. We are just human ; and we thought it an infernal outrage for the Government to make itself a party to a gamble, in which the farmer was victimized, directly, to the extent of four hundred million dollars, inside of three months. A subscriber asks me to tell the people how to lawfully get out of conscription. There is but one way : test the matten in the courts. I cannot afford to imitate Bishop Keiley's method. This Roman prelate — sworn subject of a foreign ruler — tried a Georgia statute in his own mind, by the medieval law of his foreign sovereign, and pronounced the Georgia statute invalid. He follows up this treasonous conduct, by defying the State, setting himself above the Courts, and ordering his women to resist the grand jury in the performance of its legal duty. Not being the sworn subject of a foreign potentate, I can- not indulge in the luxury of setting myself above the law, or of advising others to do so. Any father, or mother, whose son is about to be conscripted, or who has been conscripted, can lawfully stop the proceed- ings by applying to a Judge — either State or Federal — for an Injunction, or for the writ of Habeas Corpus, according to the status of the case. This was done in Washington City when the Government was about to take a minor, who had volunteered, and send him to Mexico, against the will of his parents. Of course, any man who has been conscripted, or who is ->» 24 threatened with conscription, can also apply to the Courts for relief. Congress cannot give the President greater powers than the Constitution gives to Congress. Test this new law, in a lawful way, hy an appeal to the old Supreme Law. If the new law, made by the Congress of 1917, violates the old Supreme Law, made by the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Judges will so hold, and will set it aside, presumably. I cannot understand the paralysis which prostrates our people, and causes them to supinely give up their own flesh and blood to new fangled statutes of Congressional usurpers. The States, in creating the Federal Government, did not give to Congress the authority to raise an Army by compulsion. The States possess the sovereign right to create a militia, and this militia was put at the disposal of the Federal Gov- ernment for three purposes, only. The States, speaking througk their delegates in the Con- gressional Convention of 1787, said, that the new proposed Federal Union could call upon the States for their militia and use it, for the repelling of an invasion, the suppression of an insurrection, and the execution of the laws. Heretofore, the standing Army has been filled by volun- teer enlistments: it is now the law, under the recent Act of Congress, that the standing Army shall henceforth be filled by forcible selection of the best available men. The law is unconstitutional. It is an arbitrary act of usur- pation. English liberties were made good against the tyranny of hereditary kings, by leaders who resisted encroachments upon their persons and their purses. American liberties are in danger of being lost, because we have no leaders to resist governmental encroachments. Previous to the War between the States, political educa- tion was maintained by public discussions of great principles, by great men. Since the War, political education has been neglected ; and the people who once knew that they were sovereigns, with ample power to control their public affairs, now act upon the idea that they are subjects, without the liberty of doing any- thing, except to pay taxes, and obey the orders of those in office. In the American Forum, Cardinal Gibbons — who never fails to let the Catholics know how the Italian pope wants 25 them to vote — published a card in favor of universal com- pulsory military service. What reason did this tricky old Jesuit, professed repre- sentative of the Prince of Peace, give for his warlike utter- ances? He declared that compulsory service will instill into our young men "the spirit of obedience: it will teach them the dignity of obedience ... as an homage rendered to God, since they will consider their superiors, God's representatives." Precisely: there's the papal idea! Let all power be held above the people: let them under- stand that their swperiors are God's representatives: let them pay all expenses, and obey all orders, being happy in the faith of bliss in the life to come. The American idea has been different, but is rapidly changing. Our idea has been, that the people are the source of power, and that public oflBcials are public servants, responsible to their sovereign masters, th^ people. According to the Baltimore Papal Prince — who never misses an opportunity to put the Italian pope into our politics — President Wilson is not the servant of a sovereign com- monwealth, but is the Divine Right ruler, chosen by God. American citizens must not henceforth use their own minds, and act upon their own convictions, but must meekly obey every order coming from those in authority; and if those orders do violence to the conscientious opinions of the citizen, he must render obedience "as an homage rendered to God." That's what Popery taught, after it had effected the union of Church and State in the Roman Empire, and that's what brought the Dark Ages upon Europe. Those Dark Ages lasted a thousand years. During those black and bloody centuries, there was no education for the masses, no preaching to the congregations, no Bible they coulfi read, no libraries accessible to the common man; and no lib- erties, such as the ancients had enjoyed, before the Roman bishops became monsters of -ambition, avarice, lust, and tyranny. During those Dark Ages, the voice of the Roman church was exactly the same as that of the foxy old Jesuit, Cardinal Gibbons. The Princes of the Church then said, as they now do, that authority is from God, not from the people, and that it is homage to God to meekly obey those who are in authority. It was against this monstrous doctrine, that the more inde- 26 pendent Catholics at last had to revolt: it had become too oppressive for humanity to bear. The revolt of the Catholic barons of England "wrung, from a kingly vassal of the Italian pope, the Great Charter of our liberties; and the Italian pope pronounced the hitter curse of Rome upon that Charter. Gibbons hates it, now, ^ust as it was hated by Pope Inno- cent III.^ when he laid his satanic curse upon its glorious prin- ciples. The amazing thing to me is, that our people do not appear to realize that the reactionary principles of medieval ab- solutism. Divine Right, One-man power, are being systemat- ically substituted for those progressive principles of popular self-government, for which so many millions of our great white race worked, suffered, wrote, preached, organized, fought, and died. The old foes of humanity are coming back. The old battles will have to be re-fought. The children forgot what their fathers told them: their sons will bear the burden, and pay the penalty. There is a post-card picture that you may have seen, repre- senting an Indian, out on the snow-covered plains of the Northwest, leaning against a telegraph pole, listening — with a face which expresses awe, curiosity, bewilderment, and fear — to the humming of the wires overhead. The name of the picture is, "The Song of the Talking Wire." My friends and countrymen, let me tell you a terrible truth — You and I know as little about whafs going on^ behind the scenes of Governmental action^ at this time, as that Indian knew about the messages going over those wires! 27 THE GREAT WAR, PRUSSIAN MILITARISM AND THE RECONSTRUCTION OF MODERN CIVILIZATION When a nation or a city is alarmed by the approach of epi- demic disease, what course is adopted? Do the authorities send out a large number of healthy citi- zens to catch the infection and bring it into the alarmed com- munity, or do they quarantine against it? If the authorities should open the way for the entrance of the plague, they would be considered insane, and if they should send forth large numbers of sound men t© contract the pestilence and bring it in, they would be considered criminal. Now consider this foreign horror which goes by the name of Prussian militarism : what is the best way to treat it ? Should we shut it out, or should we send a million men to catch itf As long as Prussian militarism stays in Prussia, its none of our business. If that is what the Germans like, let them have it. We have not discussed the existence of autocracy in Japan : we have not bothered our heads about autocracy in Spain: we made no protest against the autocracy of Russia. Why have we suddenly become responsible for the uni- verse ? To show you how wildly vague are the prevailing notions about our embarking upon the European War, I will quote the preamble to Dr. Gambrell's resolution adopted by the Southern Baptist Convention, a few days ago: The Southern Baptist Convention, assembled in the City of New Orleans, May 19th, 1917, representing the views commonly held by the Baptists everywhere — contemplating with mingled feel- ings of sorrow and hope the conflict of the great nations, which we recognize as a struggle of militarism, autocracy and special privilege against the simple, fundamental, indefeasible and inalienable human rights. Can you imagine a more indefinite declaration, as to the purposes which drag us into the quicksands? Is "autocracy" confined to any one nation? Is special priv- ilege a European monopoly? Is militarism a local curse? It is a most lamentable fact, that there isn't a government on earth which is not afflicted with one or the other of these evils; and anyone who knows about the land monopoly in 28 England, the special privileges of American manufacturers, and the militarism even of Switzerland, will read with aston- ishment Dr. Gambrell's statement, that we are going to cross an ocean 3,000 miles wide, in order that we may help — with blood and treasure — crush militarism in Germany. The Gambrell resolution further declared, as to our aim in the War: We insist that in the reconstruction of modern civilization now going on that the President of the United States and his counsellors, whom Providence has thrust into the leadership of advancing civ- ilization shall, in the final adjustment of the issues involved, see to it that everywhere religious persecutions shall cease, that preach- ing and the exercise of religion shall be free to every human soul. I give the above because it fairly represents current opinion. Dr. Gambrell spoke for his resolution, and was vigorously applauded. His resolutions were enthusiastically adopted, and they were published as the official voice of nearly three million white Baptists. Is a "reconstruction of modern civilization now going on" ? Did the Almighty thrust President Wilson into a second term ? When I hear a minister of the Gospel, talking to a great gathering of brother ministers, and telling them, in etfect, that God elected to have seven million soldiers slain, and seven million homes desolated, as a preliminary to a "reconstruction of modern civilization," I confess my inability to understand that conception of God and of religion. Not one of those private soldiers was in the least respon- sible for autocracy, special privilege, or militarism. Those who were responsible are still alive, occupying the high seats in life. If Christian civilization needed "reconstruction," after the religion of Christ had been supreme for 1,000 years, who was at fault? Never have I known the churches to wage bloodless but earnest wars against autocracy, special privilege, and mili- tarism. On the contrary, the organized clergy of the churches have given zealous support to established autocracy, special privi- lege, and militarism. And they are doing it now. But the point I want to make clear to my readers is this — Prussian militarism cannot harm u^, unless loe plant it in our soil. 29 The English sparrow was never an American pest until the Government imported a few pairs, and built boxes for them to nest in. The English hare never became a national affliction in Australia, until some deluded person imported a few pairs to that nevr country. Asiatic cholera never comes into Europe and America, until some traveller brings it. How can Prussian militarism be imported and planted in the United States? If the idea once takes possession of our military men, who can keep them from planting it? That the idea has long been fixed in the minds of our mili- tary men, no one can deny. They have admired the German system, and considered it the climax of military excellence. The quick and brilliant victories that Prussia gained over Denmark, Austria, and France, caused the whole military world to study German drill, German arms, German tactics, and German compulsory service. This was natural. Every man with a trade or profession, reads and thinks with especial reference to that trade or pro- fession. If he is a progressive, ambitious man, he wants to im- prove his trade, or profession. When Germany produced her new needle-gun, in 1866, the military world discarded the old muzzle-loaders. I cijt^ this, as a familiar fact; and it illustrates my propo- sition, namely — that German successes caused the military class to study and imitate German methods. This being so, Prussian militarism has long been a fixed idea in the heads of American military officers. From the General Staff at Washington City, that idea has permeated the whole military system. From that source, has come the propositions which overthrow the American system and establish the German. The American system embodied in the U. S. Constitution is based primarily upon State militia, to be called into national service when needed to repel invasion, suppress insurrection, or overcome resistance to the laws. Mr. Webster set this forth with absolute clearness in the great argument from which I quoted last week. But the virtual abolition of the States, as enroUers of vol- unteers, to be handed over to the general Government when, legally requisitioned; the substitution of a national conscript 30 system which enables the Government to press into service the citizens of the States ; the scornful disregard of Governors and the arbitraiy subjection of the citizen to military use, either at home or abroad-^-all this constitutes a new system, and its essence is Prussian. Thus the idea of the thing ^ which has long- been in the minds of our military men, has at last produced the thing itself. Therefore when Dr. Gambrell, or any one else, talks about our going to war against ?nilitarisni, he might as well talk about the old woman who went to hunt for her spectacles when she had them on her head. I was a member of Congress at the time General Cutting, of California, first introduced one of those revolutionary Prus- sian bills. It was about to pass without attracting attention, because General Cutting suavely assured the House that it was nothing more than a necessary modernizing of the State militia. However, I read the bill and saw that it proposed a revo- lution by robbing the Governors of the control of State troops, and vesting supreme control in the President. In my speech, it was my good fortune to secure the atten- tion of Gen. William C. Gates, of Alabama, one of the Demo- cratic wheel-horses. He promptly came to my assistance, and the bill was de- feated. It came back afterwards in another Congress, and neither Gen. Gates nor I was there to fight it. Under the name of the Dick bill, it became tlie origin of our present "militarism," which Dr. Gambrell believes we will wipe out when we invade Europe. Nothing that I can say or do pleases some people, and these are now saying that I favored the war until President Wilson came to that view. Readers of this paper know better. They know that I ear- nestly favored the dismissal of the German ambassador, im- mediately after the Lusitania massacre; and also the seizure of the alien Turks, Bulgarians, Austrians, and Germans, as hostages. Not a line in this paper ever indicated that I favored con- scription, or the sending of conscripts to France, or the crea- tion of dictatorial powers for the President. That our fleet should take a hand in the fight for neutral rights on the high seas, I believed and said; but I never even 31 dreamed of the possibility of a vast conscription of our young men for land-service, and in Europe. My position has been perfectly consistent; and it might be likened to that of a farmer who prays for rain, but doesn't want a deluge that will ruin his crops and take off most of his soil. I am not "too proud to fight," as the President said he was, but I am too conservative to leave the New World and go hunting for a fight in the Old World. The German fleet is bottled up, and the U-boats have proved to be more exasperating than effective ; consequently, I cannot see why our magnificent navy is unable to protect our neutral rights on the ocean. Hon. Charles H. Brand, of Georgia, expressed the views of a large percentage of the people in his speech in Congress, April 28, 1917. He said— The full war strength of the National Guard is about 287,000 soldiers. The full war strength of the Regular Army is about 625,- 000 soldiers. Here is a provision of law already in existence, ap- proved by the Army and the President, for raising an army of nearly 1,000,000, all that the President is now calling for, and it is my honest judgment that this million men should be raised in this way before resorting to conscTiption. The volunteer system has been approved by the President in the past. The truth is jio Eng- lish-speaking country on the face of the earth has ever drafted its citizens at the beginning of a war. No country on earth which ever went to war has failed first to call for volunteer enlistments. No country in Europe has any conscript law whereby soldiers may be sent across the seas to engage in a war except by special authority first being granted by its legislative body. Besides, all the wars that this country has ever engaged in or ever won were won by volunteer soldiers. No European country, so far as I know, ever resorted at the beginning of a war to con- scription to raise an army. It is currently reported in Washington that some of the Army officers were themselves opposed to con- scription and were in favor of giving the volunteer system a trial before resorting to conscription. Maj. W. C. Harllee, of the United States Marine Corps, who has served in that branch for 17 years, in testifying before the Senate Committee on Military Affairs, said: Unwilling men burden armies, eat its substance, retard its action, and give it panic. I am opposed to universal service or compulsory service, or any other kind of service than that rendered by willing men. Some well-informed people tn Congress charge that the conscrip- tion scheme is a pet of the General Staff of the Army, and that the War College finally persuaded the Prftident to give it his approval. The President and Secretary of War Garrison differed upon this very subject, which difference resulted in the latter's resigning from 32 the Cabinet. On February 10, 1916, the President wrote Secretary Garrison, in part, as follows: "As I have had occasion to say to you, I am not yet c