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YoU 38
A Most Extraordinary Letter.
Elsewhere in this issue, you will find a letter
written to me some lime ago by an inmate of the
Leavenworth penitentiary.
I can see no objection to its publication, since
it refers to general conditions.
On the other hand, this even-tempered state¬
ment, made with great self-restraint, and not hastily
used by me, is apt to make an impression which no
editorial or inflammatory speech would create.
Notice, in the first place, that the prisoner
does not complain of mistreatment: in that respect,
he is like Eugene Debs, in the Atlanta penitentiary;
and in both cases, the Warden is entitled to credit
which all humane persons will most cheerfully give.
Let me make a running outline of this remark¬
able letter of William Madison Ilicks, who was a
Baptist preacher, a socialist lecturer, a native
American of “Revolutionary stock.”
(1) He is the great-grandson of Rev.. Elias
Hicks, a citizen of this country before the present
government was formed.
His native state is Kentucky.
(2) He became a populist, and visited me in
1892, when the times were indeed hot.
He went up into the mountains of North Geor¬
gia and made speeches for the Rev. Thad Pickett,
who was a brainy man, eloquent and true.
Thad could get the votes, but the Gainesville
ting wouldn’t let him keep them.
(3) Mr. Hicks says he “placed touch faith in
the speeches of Mr. Wilson.”
That was unfortunate.
Mr. Wilson’s speeches are like the fancy slip¬
pers made for especially fashionable ladies: they
are pretty to look at, but not good to wear.
(4) Brother Hicks says that he denied the
Constitutionality of conscripting American youth,
for military service., overseas; and that he quoted
many imminent statesmen in support of his views.
He then names a number of things he said
against the General Situation; hut. so far as I can
see, his arraignment of public policies was strictly
legitimate.
(5) His allusion to his visit to India with
Kciv Hardie, and his mention of the manner hi
which England punished Hindoo “rebels,” recalls
the famous Sepoy Rebellion of 1857.
A London corporation called the East India
Company, had established trading posts in the vast
Hindoo Empire, and had thrived mightily on con¬
cessions obtained from the native princes.
By a long course of frauds, artifices, briberies,
subterfuges, impositions, perjuries, and crimes, this
London Corporation secured dominion over terri¬
tories larger than Great Britain itself.
This East India Company maintained standing
armies, composed of Hindoos and officered by Eng¬
lishmen.
The Company appointed governors over Indian
cities and provinces; and the company made war
and peace: and the Company had its own system
of currency, laws and courts.
The world had never beheld such a stupendous
development of a private Corporation.
At length, the Company became so colossal, so
formidable, and so tempting , that the British Par¬
liament scooped, for the Empire, all that the Com¬
pany had scooped for itself.
The English Government continued the policy
of maintaining Indian troops, to defend the Eng¬
lish conquests, and to extend those conquests.
Oomparitively few British troops were neces¬
sary to the subjection of India: the fighting was
largely done by Indians, disciplined and led %
British officers.
Thus. England employed Hindoos to conquqp
Hindustan: and India is even now held down by
the Indian soldiers under English control.
In 1857, these Indian soldiers (the Sepoys)
broke out; into a revolt, because of a new cartridge
which the English had adopted.
Before this cartridge could bo used in the gun
it was necessary that the soldier bite off one end of
it.
The Sepoys believed that this end, which they
were required to bite off. had been steeped in grease
made from cows.
To the Hindoo, a cow is sacred; and to eat its
flesh, or taste any grease made from it is sacrilege.
Rather than commit, the unpardonable sin, and
lose caste with all other Hindoos, these Sepoys
conspired to rebel, and they did rebel, violently
and almost successfully.
For a short while, it seemed that India might
regain its independence; but it was not to he.
England could not afford to lore her El Dorado
from which she has drawn such fabulous wealth:
consequently, she put forth all her strength, and
the uprising of the 180,000.000 Hindoos was pui
down by the ruthless methods of modern guns and
a few thousand British troops.
After the suppression of the Rebellion, it was j
necessary “to make an exnmple”: the English did it.
„ by fastenirie; the Sepoys to the month of cannon,
and then firing the guns.
Another example avas to cram Sepoys into the
(Continued on Page Two.)
as-O'*
♦ ♦
If * m * -a —--
Price $2.00 Per Year
MYSTERIOUS WAYS OF PROPAGANDA.
One of the leading Catholic papers. The Bul
eltin, says that President Wilson gave to a Catholic
paper, published in Ireland, $50,000 of the secret
fund which Congress gave to him for “war pur¬
poses.”
The Catholic Bulletin is published in Cleve¬
land, Ohio, and it is widely circulated.
Therefore, this Catholic paper is giving a large
measure of pitiless publicity to at least one apbli
cation of tie vast sum. of public money given! to
Wilson for “war purposes.” L,
The amount voted was $106,000,000.
It was given to Woodrow Wilson, persarutlhj.
No such secret-service fund, personal to one
official , was ever before known in the history of the
world.
Wilson demanded that it be given to him per¬
sonally, to be used by him, secretly , and without
having to tell what he did with it.
Nothing similar to this amazing demand, and
the hurried compliance of a coward Congress, is to
be found in the annals of the hum,an race.
Of course, every nation has a secret service,
and the funds to finance it, but this secret service
fund is not the secret of one man.
Moreover, an account is kept of the expendi¬
ture of these public moneys privately spent.
Those accounts aro regularly examined, from
time to time; and the responsible ministers of the
government are well informed as to the disposi¬
tion made of them.
In times of peace the secret service money’s are
spies, whose business it is to pierce their way into
the secrets of other governments.
No NATION TRUSTS ANT OTHER.
Every embassy at Washington is a nest of
public spies, called ambassadors, ministers, envoys,
diplomats etc.
Every one of our embassies in foreign coun¬
tries, is a similar nest of sp’es.
But in addition to these public agencies, each
government employs private spies, and then other
spies to watch them and report on them.
V
Besides, the government may adopt some poli
cy which the ministers know will cause a public
uproar: in that case, the uproar must be prev.entc-fl.
How can that be done?
In various ways:
The most influential papers must be secretly
approached; eminent editors must be persuaded to
become converts to the government’s proposed un¬
popular measures: plausibly patriotic articles must
be written and published:
Again, there must be circulars, pamphlets,
handbills, lurid posters, to cover the land with lies,
in favor of the government’s policy.
Then, too, there is the moving picture agency :
It must be made to move and keep moving, un¬
til no picture can be, seen, excepting those in favor
of the unpopular programme of the government.
Next, buy some oratory, and send it around to
every place where a crowd can be conscripted and
made to listen: this oratory will consist of elabo¬
rated, rhetorical lies, but, that doesn’t matter; the
truth will not be. known until after the government
shall have got what it wanted.
If any wilful group of persons advertise rt
meeting against the government’s proposed policy,
don’t let them hold it: use the secret service spies
to break it, up: in the extreme cases, arrest the
speakers and send them to jail.
Say that you do this in the interest of law and
order.
If anybody contradicts what you say, you keep
on saying what you said.
The contradictor will get tired and quit.
By constantly repealing the same thing every
day, the government will convince the majority. valid
Mirabe.au used to say that, if a man’s
told him the same thing every morning, the master
would come to believe it. no matter how absurd the
statement might be.
Propaganda, is based on that idea.
Say it; say it again; repeat it; keep on repeal¬
ing it; give to the assertion the irrcsistable force
It will be a great value to us to have all subscrip¬
tions sent to
THE COLUMBIA SENTINEL,
Thomson Office,
Thomson, Ga.
Have money orders made out in this way, and much time
will be saved in booking your subs.
THE COLUMBIA SENTINEL.
Harlem, Ga., Friday, Move mb er 21, 1919.
of vibration —the same invisible, indefinable power
which, in the velvet feet of a cat , shakes the floor,
That’s propaganda/
If refuted, don't notice the refuter, or the re-i
futation.
He doesn’t exist: mentally obliterate him, and i
he's obliteratel. j
i
Say that you are a Southern gentleman; born j
of the Cavaliers; a scion of the F. F. V's.of Vir
ginia; full of the red old vintage, known once as
Chivalry: say it today, say it tomorrow, speak it.
write it, give it the vitality of reiteration—and it
goes: you were born of the Prince Rupert Cavaliers
that came over to Virginia in die Colonial days:
you are one of the F. F. V.’s; your veins arc full
of the purple wine of When Knighthood was in
Flower.
Suppose some mere Son of a Gun docs exhibit
your family tree, and show that it has no tap-root
of any particular sort, how can he disturb your
equanimity, or deprive you of your Southern Co¬
lonial Rupert Cavalier ancestry?
He can't.
He is foolish to try. j
1
Your propaganda did the work, and the work
stands.
Didn’t Victor Hugo and others prove that
Napoleon III. was not a Bonaparte?
They did.
It was easy to do, since hi\ mother was a Beau
harnais, who had separated from her Bonaparte
husband, and who was the mistress, in turn, of the
Duke of Flahant and Admiral Horn of the Dutch
navy.
But the Imperialists needed* a Bonaparte, and
Louis Napoleon suited their purposes, and the pro¬
pagandists made him a Bonaparte.
He answered every Imperialist purpose as long
as he lasted.
And he goes down to history as Napoleon Bo
nephew, whenjie Jv vas no closer kin to
Napoleon than was your grandmother,
As worker of miracles, thei propagandists come
next to Aunt Anne’s finger hope.
The Fisherman’s Ring has W such necromancy
about it as the pen of the alert propagandist.
The Saints perform trivialities for the true
believers, individually, while the Propagandists pi¬
lot empires into uncharted seas.
My neighbor went to bed one -night, early in
1917, with his head fairly full of Andrew Jackson:
when he undressed, a few nights later, his skyscraper
was illuminated with Woodrow Wilsonistn.
My neighbor is not conscious of any change of
mind: he denies that, there has been any: he says
that he saw that lie had never understood about de¬
mocracy: he says his eyes were opened by the daily
perusal of a paper sent him by Mr. George Creel:
lie is sorry it was so late in his life before he
learned the nature of democracy: but being some¬
what a philosopher, lie says, “Better late, than
never.”
He was not only converted, without being aware
of it, but he was infused with missionary zeal: he
casually offered to lend me one of George Creel’s
papers.
I thanked him kindly, and told him that mine
was as much as T could stand.
(It was more than the Propagandists could
stand, by the hve.)
. But—resuming the thread of mv reflections- -
is it true that a Catholic paper, in Ireland, got
$50,000 of what was once our money?
“War purposes” is a flexible pair of words,
but, it would not, seem natural for them to cover
the subsidizing of a Dublin editor, unless, indeed,
he was the St. Patrick edition of George Creel.
Possibly, Senator Underwood will look up that
itemized account, to which he referred one of his
confiding constituents, and toll us whether The,
Freemans Journal is down $n the list for $50,000.
issued Weekly
A Letter From Mr. Taft.
The husband of Mrs. Wittilorlv gloried in tlio
fart that his wife, in the course of ;i year expressed
.m immense number of opinions on a vast variety
of subjects.
lv Excepting these mental exercises. Mrs. Wittitnv
didn't do anything in particular.
Mr. M illiam Howard 1 aft seems to he sincerely
convinced, that the test of us can't make our nvirute,
until he has shown us how.
If there is a single subject that has escaped
an outpouring from Mr. Taft. 1 can’t, remember it
It seems to be his business to keep watch and
w * r( * over "lankiml. lesi if should make some fatal
!m -sttp.
But there is one lliing that l.e does not venti¬
late:
He never tells us the nature of the oorrespoo
lenee. curried on clandestinely. between himself and
ho Pope—a secret exchange of autograph letters,
in which Major Butt acted for President Taft, and
lest his life at sea.
A Texas gentleman wrote to Mr. Taft, in be¬
half of Eugene Dobs, and received the following
•eply:
New Haven, Conn.. 10—20—10.
My Dear Sir: 1 have vour letter in respect
o Eugene A ,\JCD. 1 don't sympathize with you
,n your view of Mr. Debs. His is a most pernicious
influence in the community, lie did advise tren
«v.i in seeking to paralyze the arin of the govern¬
ment when it was needed to defend this country in
'or hour of peril: and not for the purpose of ven
jeancc, but for the purpose of deterring other dan¬
gerous fools like him, a proper punishment lia-d to
>e inflicted. 1 have no doubt that whenever the
‘Eject of the punishment is obtained, the executive
vill discharge his duty and exereiese such cieiiv
ncy as may be proper.
Sincerely vours.
(Signed) Win. II. Taft.
(Copy)
During President Taft's administration, Ms.
Debs was persecuted, prosecuted, convicted and im¬
prisoned.
But the case was so absurd on the face of it,
that Mr. Taft felt constrained to force a pardon
upon the unbending socialist leader.
This incident may have left in
mind a feeling of hitter dislike to l>ebs.
There would seem to be quite a display of rin
dictiveness in the foregoing letter, for Mr. Taft
calls DTsbs a dangerous fool, a most pernicious in¬
fluence. a traitor to his country.
In Mr. Taft’s letter, mo again see h-ow di ffinslt
it is for the original War-boomers to state the ac¬
tual cause of the irar.
Mr. Taft says that the arm of the government
was needed to defend this country in her hour
peril.
But that is not what President Wilson saich:
on the contrary, the President- has emphasized the
statement, that this country fought for humanity*
everywhere, and had no special grievance, of its own.
In at. least a dozen addresses, made here and
abroad, President Wilson has declared that our part
in the War was unselfish, altruistic, a Crusade ia
behalf of endangered liberties, "everywhere.”
But Mr. Taft writes, that our country was in
great peril, and that the part we took m the, War
WAS IN SEUE-DERENSV.
Mr Taft appears to have forgotten our debt
to La Fayette.
Doesn’t, he remember that we sent our three
million young men, 3,000 miles across the ocean fc»
save civilization?
Didn’t President Wilson sav, in the first of. bis
Western speeches, that the war was a maiiwtous
AND INDUSTRIAL WAR?
Mr. Wilson declared, in 1017. that the. “full
fruition” of the purposes of our forefathers would
not be attained, until wo answered the divine caR,
followed the vision, and liberated subject peoples
throughout the world.
Mr. Taft needs to refresh his memory.
He, should begin by reading the PresidoaRl
Th anksgi ring Prod am a (ion.
In this Proclamation, Mr. Wilson does not sagr
we should rejoice on account of our escape from the
“hour of peril.”
The President does not allege that, ours was*
war of self-defense.
On the contrary, he states that. “No selfish pur¬
pose animated ns in becoming participants m thm
World-wary
Above all these conflicting reasons for the waa,
the President supplied another at the Conference
held at the White House with the Senators:
In that Conference, Mr. Wilson said, that Ah
country would, have gone into the IVor, hvkjt nr
Germany had never given us provocation to do mi
Regardless of Germany’s condtlct toward as,
the President would have gone to the rescue of Eng¬
land.
No other reasonable construction can be git**
to the President’s astonishing statement.
Now, If Eugene Debs honestly believed tint
(Continued on Page Two^ 4
Mo. 9