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PAGE TWO
BThe Alleged Inconsistency of
| The Jeffersonian
M (CONTENDED FROM PAGE ONE.)] •'
Jeffersonian has so consistently opposed,
ume into the law byway of an amendment,
offered by a jew who was born in Berlin,
who naturally brought with him to this
country his ideas of german militarism.
In that manner, German militarism was
thrust into a military measure which, with
out this clause, would have increased the
Army by voluntary enlistment.
This was in May: the author of the amend
ment is Julius Kahn, M. C. from California.
As soon as the conscription card was taken
Yom up the sleeve, and laid on the table, I
telegraphed to Hon. Champ
my hearty endorsement of his stand
gainst it, and urged him to fight it out.
Even then it was not known outside of
congress that the new law gave the Presi
dent the power to merge the State Militia
. . with the Regular Army, and send it out of
the country.
Last year, the President said that he had
no such power, and that Congress could not
give him authority ti£ that extent, because
the Constitution required that the militia be
kept at home, for domestic purposes.
I quoted those Presidential statements in
my argument against the new law.
Judgs Speer did not rule on this point, be
cause the case of the two negroes did not
raise it.
I am sure, however, that all constitutional
Jawyers will recognize the force of it.
7 All the authorities Story, Cooley, Van
<;■ Holst, Kent, Blackstone, &c., agree that the
■v militia cannot be used except to repel inva
sion, suppress insurrection, and enforce the
laws.
The idea of forcibly employing the local
militia in a foreign war, is entirely antag
onistic to English and American principles.
Nobody said so more often and more em
phatically than Woodrow Wilson, year.
o—
The Call-off of the Macon Meet
ing
\V ITH the lights before me*, and in the
interests of peace, I decided to call off
the Macon meeting, because convinced that
an organized effort would be made to prevent
peaceable assemblage and free speech.
If any mistake was made in this, I take
the blame. My information may not have
been accurate, and the opposition to the meet
ing may have consisted largely of bluff; but
there are hot-heads on both sides, and our
enemies would have probably provoked some
kind of collision. ' <
iWe know how the United States soldiers
• broke up the peaceable meeting in Boston;
how the same thing is being done in New
York, and how people are being arrested
without warrant throughout the country for
“remarks derogatory to the President.”
Free speech is a thing of the past. In every
city and town there are patriots fattening
on war-profits^^nd these men act in collusion,
to intimidate citizens who are conscientiously
opposed to sending armies to Europe.
The statement is boastfully made in the
Atlanta dailies that troops were to be used
to prevent the meeting in Macon.
Also, that the Sheriff of Bibb county was
prepared to swear in a sufficient number of
deputies to prevent any assemblage outside
the city limits.
Any such conduct would have been the
grossest outrage, but what do these fanatics
care for law?
They don’t care a bean for the Constitu
tion: they resort to the Strong Arm. It is
a recurrence to brute force.
Prussian militarism, at its worst, is just
like that*
$
THE JEFFERSONIAN
They know they are wrong, and; they don’t
dare let the people learn the truth.
Suppression is the order of the day. The
people must be kept in the dark.
If a paper exposes the facts, they shut it
out of the mails.
If a speaker wants to tell what is going
on, they seal up the town and don’t allow
him to speak
If this way, we commence to liberate the
Germans.
In this way, we bestow the blessings of
democracy upon mankind.
Before a shot is fired, we load the country
with a debt, now almost twice as large as
Germany’s, after Germany has maintained
huge armies in France, Russia, Turkey, and
the Balkans for more than three years of
the most stupendous fighting ever kiiown.
We deny to free Americans the simplest
natural rights of forming, expressing, and
publishing opinions, although our Govern
ment itself is built upon the opinion of the
majority.
We have had no other way of maintaining
our institutions, except by the opinions of
majorities, legally expressed at the ballot
box.
But we are now forbidden to have any
opinion different from that of the men who
were elected, last November, on exactly the
opposite opinions to those they now hold.
What was Simon-pure democracy last No
vember, is rank treason today; and if I pro
pose to repeat in Macon the identical senti
ments upon which Wilson won votes last. Fall,
I am denied the privilege to speak, am sav
agely abused by the papers, and am menaced
with personal violence.
So late as October, 1916, President Wilson
made speeches at Shadow Lawn, New Jer
sey, in which he took precisely the same posi
tion that I take now; but the Maftpn authori
ties, who rapturously endorsed, those views
last October, decline to permit anyone to re
peat them at this time.
Why? The essential, facts have not
changed, but the President has; and so com
plete and devoid of reason is the change,
that no one can explain or defend it.
Hence, the lid must be clapped on.
’. i The matter must not be talked about. Hush
it all up. Maintain silence and divide the
money.
McAdoo mentioned week before last that
he would need nine thousand millions more;
and before the papers could be fixed up to
suit him, the amount had grown to $11,500,-
000,000. Apparently, it swelled more than
two thousand millions while he was calcu-
’ A a
. The people of Georgia were never more
flagrantly insulted than when the two Macon
papers and the City Government autocrat
ically announced, that a peaceable assembly
should not be held there, to discuss a hurried
ly made law which abolishes the State militia,
and places the entire civil administration of
all the States under martial law.
It is the most revolutionary, undemocratic,
reactionary, and monarchical law ever put
upon a people, sincQ the days when the Pope
and the Holy Alliance set in to crush the
liberties of continental Europe.
It was that unholy alliance which gave rise
to Resident Monroe’s famous assertion of the
Monroe Doctrine.
Pope Pius IX., and the monarchs of
France, Prussia, Russia, and Austria deluged
Europe with the blood of patriots who gave
their lives to establish the natural rights of
humanity.
(The mortal combat ended with the over"*
throw of the Pope’s Temporal Power, in
1870.) • ’
This new law of Nt ay, 1917, cannot bear
public discussion.
Its supporters dare not let the people
know its nature. 7- ‘
• It revolutionizes your republican 'form of
government.
. It reduces the States to the helpless condi
tion of provinces.
. It deprives the States of their independent
militia.
It degrades every State officer—from Gov
ernor down to bailiff—to the service of mili
tary masters in Washington City.
It totally robs the States of their power to
protect the life, liberty, and property of their
citizens.
It gives the President power to order out
of the States their governors, their civil offi
cials, and every able-bodied man in their
, limits, leaving the women and children with
out organized or available means of self-de
fense AGAINST A NEGRO UPRISING, OT Other form
of sudden danger.
In short, the hastily adopted Act of May,
1917, rapes the states, and was so intended
by the Prussianists and West Pointers who
have completely captured the Administra
tion,
This law cannot stand the brunt of fair
analysis and fearless criticism; therefore, the
law must be shielded from analysis and crit
icism.
That’s why I was forbidden to speak in
Macon, and that’s why The Jeffersonian is
thrown out of the mails.
However, if you have some money to spend
at the State Fair, a few weeks from now,
you will probably be given the privilege of
dropping it in Macon.
If the Farmers’ Union wants to hold an
other convention in Macon, and leave some
ducats at the hotels, stores, and boarding
■ houses; no doubt the Central City will con
: sent.
, If the Masonic Grand Lodge desires to
have its usual yearly session in Macon, it
might be well to secure an advance permit:
for, since the Government administered that
kick in Atlanta, the Knights of Columbus
•inay not be willing to have the Grand Lodge
meet in Macon.
MACON MEETING OF DRAFT
“ANTIS” NOW CALLED OFF
Alleged Watson Has Been Threatened and His
1* amity Refuses to Uct Him Go as Principal
Speaker.—Delegates Notified and Asked Not
to go to Macon as Authorities Had Determined
Meeting Should Not Be Held in County, Even
if Soldiers Had to Be Called.
Macon, Ga., August 21. (Special.) —C. a.
Yarbrough, a dentist, who had made several es
- (? rts to obtain a P la ce in this county for Thomas
i E. Watson to deliver an anti-draft speech on
Thursday night, announced tonight that the meet
ing would not be held.
“Mr. Watson has received threatening letters
from Macon,” said Dr. Yarbrough tonight. “His
family will not permit him to fill his appoint
ment in Macon on Thursday night.’’
The message came from J. L. Sibley, of Mil
ledgeville, who acted as Mr. Watson’s manager
for the meeting that had been planned for this
city. According to Dr. Yarbrough, Sibley is no
tifying the delegates throughout the State not
to come to Macon; that the chief speaker, Wat
son, will not be here.
The message was received late this afternoon.
Previous to its receipt, after a local committee
nad railed to obtain the courthouse and city hall
for the proposed meeting, a vacant lot was ob
tained just outside the city limits. The com
mittee also arranged to obtain a tent, which they
had planned to pitch there during Wednesday.
Federal, county and city authorities are ready
to act should any anti-draft demonstration be
attempted. .
Prior to the announcement that the meeting
had been called off, every branch of authority
was at work determined that the proposed meet
ing should not be held in the city of Macon or
In Bibb county.
The city declined the use of any of its public
buildings or parks. The county did the same,
Announcement had been made that the entire
police force of the city would be used in sup
pressing the meeting if it was attempted to be
Thursday, AugusOO, 1917.