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(Thiirsday, August 16, 1917. 1
adopted The Jeffersonian's contention, as to
jtfhat constitutes Treason.
There was nothing else to do: the language
of the Constitution is too plain for doubt ;
•and the War-Whoops who have been making
■‘treason out of spoken, or written words,
have merely been displaying their comprehen
sive stupidity.
I yet have hopes that Congress and the
Attorney-General's Office will recognize the
force of our contention about Conscription.
Let me quote what President Wilson said
in discussing the scope of the Army-increase
Act:
“Thousands, nay, hundreds of thousands of
men otherwise liable to military service will
of right and necessity be excused from that
service and assigned to the fundamental, sus
taining work of the fields and factories and.
'mines. and they will be as much part of the
great patriotic forces of the nation as the men
under fire.”
These words occur in the President’s pub
lished address to “Aly fellow-countrymen,”
May, 1917.
If the language means what it seems to,
then the President claims authority, under re
cent laws, to assign the conscripted men to in
dustrial servitude, whenever lie judges that
their labor will best conduce to the general
policy of the government.
Negroes can be “assigned" to work in the
fields, for white men; and whites can be
“assigned" to work in mines and factories,
for the corporations which need labor.
For example: John D. Ryan, Romanist
and K. of C.. is one of the Copper Kings, and
is head of the Red Cross field-work: ho is
accused in Congress of being guilty of the
corporation crimes in Arizona. Those crimes
consist of the violent banishment of 1190 free
American citizens from their homes and their
State, followed by the dastardly lynching of
a cripple, who was one of their leaders.
- The Copper Kings may not be able to ac
cumulate any more blood-stained millions,
because free Americans ma ynot be willing
to continue to furnish the labor. Therefore,
the President may plead military necessity,
and assign to the heartless, lawless Copper
Kings the workmen they need.
Will it be involuntary servitude, if the
President assigns 100,000 negroes to the cot
ton fields, in the places of 100,000 white men
forced into the European trenches?
Will it be involuntary servitude, if the
President assigns ten thousand white men
to the cmopper wines of Arizona?
These are very practical questions, and
they are “up to" us.
They have got to be answered, now !
The President lias as much right to estab
lish a system of involuntary industrial servi
tude, as he has to establish military service by
force. The one is not more antagonistic to
the 13th Amendment, than the other.
Can free men be reduced to industrial
serfage, without a violation of the Constitu
tion ?
Can free men be reduced to military serf
age, without a breach of the Supreme Law?
We have been taught that it was an abom
inable abuse of power, when England pre
vailed upon German Kinglets to lend her the
.use of German soldiers, during the Revolu
tionary War. The word “Hessian," was, as
[we thought, made forever infamous.
But is not our Government about to serve
England in substantially the same way?
The Administration now announces,
through Senator James Hamilton Lewis and
the New York organs, that an American army
is to be sent to Russia!
They are even saying that another Amer
ican army will be sent to Italy.
Are American soldiers, by the million, to be
Hess ionized’, at the behest of the European
and American capitalists who banked on Ger
man defeat?
THE JEFFERSONIAN
Did American mothers and fathers raise
their boys to be handed around in Europe,
to whichever of England's allies needs them?
Great Heavens! Look back across the re
cent years, and see how the people have been
systematically hoo-dooed by the Washington
Militarists.
It all started with a Hobsomzed Jap war
scare; and then Preparedness: and then a
small army in France, “for moral effect”; and
then came conscription, millions to the battle
line in Northern France, billions byway of
loans —and now it is American armies wher
ever the capitalists want them!
to
THESE ARE YOUR RIGHTS:
EXERCISE THEM F£AR
LESSLY: BE MEN!
'T'IIE man who tells you that Congress is its
1 own master, and can make any sort cf
law, is an infamous liar.
Congress is, not its own master, but is
THE SWORN SERVANT OF THE CONSTITUTION, and
amenable to the people.
Not a single member of Congress can take
his seat and cast a vote, until after he has
taken a solemn and public oath to support and
defend the Constitution of the United States.
No man elected to the Presidency can enter
upon the duties and powers of the office, until
after he has publicly and solemnly taken an
oath to preserve. protect, and defend the Con
stitution !
What's the matter with you?
What's become of your intelligence and
your manhood?
Why is it you crouch, and tremble, and
cringe, at the bluff game played on you by
the bought-up daily Pig-Squeal, the mercen
ary town ringster, and a salaried preacher
who has forgotten that our Master sharply
drew the line between religion and politics?
("Render unto Caesar the things that are
Caesars": some of our preachers interpret
this command to mean, that they must turn
their pulpits into Caesarian megaphones.)
The Supreme Laic of the United States,
IS THE CONSTITUTION.
yet it. and read it!
V hen you divorce yourself from a dime,
and buy our pamphlet containing this Su
preme Law, you can learn, within an hour,
more about your unchangeable rights, than
the editors of all the daily Pig-Squeals know.
Congress cannot change that supreme
law.
No power on earth can change it, except
the concurrent action of three-fourths of the
4S States composing this miserably misgov
erned and overtaxed Union.
Congress is powerless—and so is the Presi
dent, and so is the daily Pig-Squeal, and so
is the local postmaster —to forbid your free
exercise of your Constitutional right—
(l) To freely express your opinions,
(2) To freely publish those opinions,
(3) To peaceably assemble and discuss your
public affairs,
(4) To petitions to Congress and the
President, demanding the repeal of objection
able laws, and the reversal of objectionable
policies,
(5) To demand the production of a war
rant signed by a judicial officer, based on affi
davit. before anybody whomsoever shall en
ter your dwelling against your will, or put
you personally under arrest,
(6) To give bond for your appearance in
Court, after a grand-jury of your county, or
V. S. District, shall have indicted you,
(7) To have a trial, speedily and in publi •,
MASS MEETING AT GROVETOWN, GA., AUG. IS
A mass meeting will be held at Grovetown, Ga. t
Saturday, Aug. 18, for the purpose of discussing
the Conscription law.
by a jury of your equals, in the county, or
the district where you live.
(8) To swear cut a State warrant, imme
diately, against, any secret service man. dep
uty, or jackassical Smart-Alec who dores to
lay his hands on you. without a legal war
rant.
(9) To eject, from a public and peaceable
assembly of the people, any insolent inter
loper who commits a breach of the peace or
disturbance of the meeting.
Any person who tells you that President
Wilson, or Congress, or any other power, has
deprived you of these Constitutional rights,
won by the blood of your fathers, is an UN
SCRUPULOUS liar.
For God's '-ake, be men. Stand up for
Constitutional rights.
it now. or hereafter hold your peace,
for it will then be too late.
■ _®
“WHii Proud PsinctHi*?,” Here
We Go
DROFFSSOR WILSON, when girding up
his loins for battle —having recovered
from his pious mental state of being ‘'too
proud to fight"—announced to mankind that,
while he meant to crush German militarism
and force 65,000,000 Germans to become de
serving Democrats, overnight, he would wage
war upon them, “with proud punctilio,*" for
the nicest rules of civilized warfare.
To deliberately slaughter tens of thousands
of fellow Christians, is a painful task: but
when we do it with proud punctilio for the
best rules and regulations, our scruples be
come much less poignant.
At present, no Buddhists are slaughtering
Buddhists; no Confucianists are butchering
Confucianists; no Mohammedans are massa
creing Mohammedans; and no heathen are
wading knee-deep in heathen gore.
The slaughter that has been going on for
three years, is that of Christians killing
Christians.
The Christian Bible is on each side of the
firing line; and the Christian chaplain draws
his pay from both sides; and the chaplain's
prayer, like the rain, falls upon the just and
the unjust, so long as his salary is paid.
We learn from the Kaiser's own lips, that
he and God are fighting together! We learn
from King George, that God sides with him •
and we, of course, understand that God is also
on the side of Professor Wilson.
The Kaiser's chaplain recently informed
mankind, in the most public and authorita
tive manner, that God had had the keeping
of the German sword, and that God intrusted
the weapon to 11 indenberg.
The Kaiser himself was favored by a ivsit
from the Virgin Mary, who smiled upon him
approvingly and assured him success in the
war.
At least, the Kaiser made assertions to this
effect, and the Virgin failed to deny them.
In view of these facts, the following- is
worth notice:
Amsterdam, Aug. 7. —Dutch newspapers print
in a parallel column with an account of the mur
der of the crew of the British steamship Belgian
Prince a telegram giving the following extract
from a pastoral letter read in all the Protestant
churches of Berlin last Sunday:
“We will comport ourselves as Christians to
ward our enemies and conduct the war in the
future as in the past, with humanity and chiv
alry.”
The pastoral letter was read at a service which
Emperor William and the German Empress at
tended at the cathedral. It exhorts the people
to humanity and recognizes the hand of God in
the protection from invasion which the fatherland
has enjoyed.
When we read in the recent daily papers
bow the private American soldier, M. J.
Meyers, who was killed at Harpers Ferry, in
the struggle to gag him (as per the peremp
(continued on page seven.)
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