The Oklahoma Leader (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 5, No. 27, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 26, 1918 Page: 2 of 4
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I.i
. ,1« r< «1 Waush's letter us impertinent,
:.iid H;tni that he believed that Walsh
I,;,11 not appreciated or deserved the
courteous treatment he had received.
Burleson stated that in- was respon-
:i l< fur any action taken by his sub-
« rdinati-s and that Walsh was wel-
come to take the matter up with tlie
president, if he pleased, Walsh said
that he was not a Socialist.
RI<:.\1)S IN PROTESTS.
Declarations by the Socialist parties
oi the belligerent nations, issued just
prior to the outbreak of the war, de-
nouncing the impending conflict as
the ine\ table result of the capitalist
system and calling upon the workers
«r Europe to do everything in their
power to avert hostilities, were read
into the record late Friday by J. Louis
Engdahl, from the flies of The Amer-
ican Socialist.
When Engdahl read a statement
from Karl Liebknecht, which The
American Socialist had received from
ticommittee on public information,
urging a revolution in Germany as a
means of stopping the war, and when
h« stated in response to questions by
Stedman that Liebknecht had been
imprisoned by the German govern-
ment for this action and praised by
the American government, Clyne ob-
jected on the ground that the witness
did not know of these things of his
i wn personal knowledge.
CALLS IT HEARSAY.
"This evidence is hearsay," lie de-
clared. "I move that it be ruled out
p immaterial."
"We will show that this evidence is
material," said Stedman. "You pro-
duced as evidence a letter from John
Spargo, former member of the So-
cialist national executive committee,
denouncing the party as pro German.
We intend to show from this evidence
th. t the Socialist parties of Europe
were opposed to this war on the same
Mounds stated by the American So-
cialist party. One of the charges
against us is that we are disloyal and
pro-German.
"Disloyalty does not merely mean
disaffection. It means activity hos-
tile to our country and in the inter-
ests of her enemies. We submit this
statement by Liebknecht in the offi-
cial paper of the Socialist party to
show that our sympathies were not
w'th the German government."
Judge Land is ruled that the evi-
dence was admissable.
The first declaration read was that
1 y the German Socialist party.
SCOKKS AUSTRIA'S DEMANDS.
It was printed in The Berlin Vor-
waerts, July 25, 1914 and in The
American Socialist, Aug. 15, 1914. It
denounced the demands of the Aus-
trian government on Serbia and de-
clared that these demands only could
result in a European war to the ad-
vantage of the capitalists and the
ruination of the workers. It called
upon the German people to protest
against the "shedding of a drop of
German blood for the profits of the
Austrian imperialists in the war whien
now threatens."
The declaration of the Austrian So-
cialists demanded that their govern-
ment withdrew its demands on Serbia
and pledged the aid of the Austrian
Socialist movement to do all in their
power to avert the war.
The French Socialists declared that
the proletariat of all countries must
protest against the impending war
and do their utmost to prevent the
workers from being forced on to the
battlefield against each other in the
interests of the ruling classes of their
nations.
ence during the war and said that he
was notified Aug. 10, 1917 that second
I class mail rights had been revoked by
I the postal authorities. Prior to this
time, he said, many editions had been
held up by the postofflce authorities
at Chicago but that no notification
had been received by him of this fact.
He said that he usually learned of the
situation through tlr- protests of sub-
scribers who had failed to recive their
paper.
Il«* told of going to the Chicago offi-
cials for a ruling as to what matter
was considered objectionable and as-
serted that he was not given any def-
inite information. Thereupon, he
said, for some time, he submitted
proofs of articles on the war and al-
lied subjects to the Chicago postal
authorities and made whatever om-
mi -ions they recommended.
DARROW \LSO PROTESTS.
Detailing the work of the commit-
ter sent by the national executive
committee of the party to Washing-
ton to protest against the holding up
of the publication by the postal au-
thorities. Engdahl said that Judge
llerrin. of the department of justice,
was appealed to for a ruling of the
department as to the espionage act in
connection with Socialist papers.
Clarence S. Darrow, member of the
committee, told the judge that he had
come to Washington to protest against
111'1 suppression of ^Socialist and labor
papers. Me scored the government's
policy as insane and stated that free-
dom of the press in war time was
essential to an intelligent discussion
of public problems.
Asked by Stedman to tell whether
Darrow favored the war, Engdahl said
that Darrow has told the judge that
his only criticism of the government
was that it had not entered the war
soon enough.
QUOTES BIBLE—JAILED.
Morris Hillquit stated that the So-
cialist papers wanted the department
of justice to interpret the espionage
act in order that they might know
the attitude of the government toward
the Socialist press.
"The judge told us," said Engdahl,
"that the whole situation constituted
a big problem. He told us that in
England a man who circulated leaf-
h t« containing the sermon on the
mount, taken verbatum from the
Bible, had been sent to prison for 10
years. He promised to take our argu-
ments under consideration and said
that he would issue a statement later
which would tell the Socialist press
where it stood. We never heard from
him on the matter.
"Postmaster General Burleson told
us that his only duty was to admin-
ister the law as passed by congress.
H" told us that If we did not like the
law we should work to change it.'
WALSH YLSO PROTESTS.
When Darrow told him that a rul-
ii g was imperative because the So-
cialist papers were all poor and could
not afford to tight for their rights in
th<* courts, he said he was very sorry
that the Socialist papers were poor
and added that he hoped some day
they would all be rich.
Frank P. Walsh said that he was
interested in maintaining the freedom
i f the press during war time and told
Burleson that he represented The
Rebel, a Texas paper which spoke for
the tenant farmers of that region.
"1 can't see what a MP this has to do
with the case," objected Clyne.
"What do you say about it, Mr.
Stedman?" asked Judge Landis.
"I think it's material," said Sted-
man. "It shows the effort of the So-
cialist party to get a ruling as to the
press under the espionage act."
"The policy was to maintain the
position of the International Social-
ist movement on war."
"State that policy briefly."
LAVS WAR TO CAPITALISTS.
• The Socialist movement holds that
the chief cause of war %is the com-
mercial rivalry of competing groups
,,t capitalists. We hold that the only
way to end war is to end the capital-
ist system under which it is neces-
80ry to find foreign markets in which
tc sell the surplus goods which the
workers are not able to buy back be-
cause they do not receive the full
value of their product."
Engdahl stated that he was a dele-
gate from the American Socialist
I arty to the international Socialist
and labor conferenct in Copenhagen
i t 1910. He stated that the confer-
ence delegates, including McDonald,
K er Hardie, Jean Longuet, Karl
Liebknecht, Victor Adler, Rosa Lux-
emburg, Jean Jaures and other So-
cialist leaders, had "taken the posi-
tion that in the event of war. the So-
cialists must make every effort, even
t > fomenting revolution and calling
general strikes, to avert the menace.
DEAN LOYETT ON STAND.
Prof. Robert Lovett, dean of the
junior college, Chicago university.
testified for the defense that he acted
in 1917 as vice-president of the Chi-
cago branch of the People's Council,
of which Tucker had been president.
The defense offered as evidence a
speech made by Lovett at a council
meeting, May 27, 1917, in which he
said that the aims of the organiza-
tion were to agitate for an expres-
sion by the administration of the
terms on which it would make peace;
to safeguard civil liberties during the
war; to work for the abolition of mili-
tarism. and to work for the return of
the government to a democratic basis
after the war. '
Lovett stated that he had always
advised men of military age to submit
to the draft law. He stated that his
son had been killed in action in
France.
IIAESSLER BROUGHT IN
Carl Haessler's name was brought
into the trial when Fleming asked
Lovett if he knew him. Lovett stated
that he did not. He said that he
knew Brent Dow Allison. Both men
are serving terms in Leavenworth as
war objectors. Lovett stated that in
his associations with Tucker he had
never heard the latter say anything
against the entrance of the United
States into the war.
Marie RatV, employed in the office
of the national executive committee.
said that she knew Private Arnold
Schiller, a witness for the prosecu-
tion who had stated that the Yipsels.
headed by Kruse, were planning | tQ tJo
wholesale draft evasion. She stated 1
that she had been present when Schil- 1
ler. then in rervfee, told Germer that I
he had overstayed his leave from j
camp. Germer. she said, advised j
Schiller to return unless he wanted to j
*HOME MADE AMERICANS.
ysaf
•V
>. r; :i
"WE."
Clarcncc—Say, Bill, wliadi'c'yc know about this?—\\#c \c got to raise
eight billion dollar^ in the next Liberty Loan!'
(Respectfully referral to the ^Americanization' bUHV udle-< ' ntor t'ommon-
wfealth).
WIERD QRGANiZAim OF RAILROAD
MEN IN RUSSIA, ASK FOR STATUS
Russian Railway Service Corps, Americans,
Wants to Know if It Is in U. S. Army or in
Pay of Russ "Government."
THE LEADER'S WASHINGTON BUREAU
WASHINGTON—Senate bill 5034,
introduced Nov. 18 by Poindexter,
Washington, is a bijl "To give officers
and enlisted men of the Russian rail-'
way service corps the same status and
benefits as officers and enlisted men
in the Railway Engineers' organiza-
tions of the United States army."
Did you ever hear, until now, of
the Russian Railway Service corps?
Probably not. And yet the officers
and men of that organization have
been taken from the United States to
Japan, thence after six or eight
months of delay to Siberia, and have
been juggled back and forth between
the authority of the United States and
the authority of some mythical Rus-
sian government that was supposed
to be "re-establishing order" against
the Bolshevikl, until they are crying
out for help and protesting that they
1 were enlisted and carried half way
! around he world under an entire mis-
! understanding, if not under misrepre-
sentation. as to what they were going
be thrown into the guardhouse. She
said Schiller answered: "Oh. to h—
with them. Let them come and get
me if they want to."
SELDOM SAW LETTERS.
The witness said that when orders
for mimeographed copies of letters
wrere received at the national office
from state secretaries, the practice
was to send the copies back to the
NEVER GIVEN.
overruled," said
the
RILING
"Objection
judge.
"Burleson promised to confer with
Solicitor General Lamar as to a defini-
tion of his department's position
toward the Socialist press under the
espionage act, but the ruling was
never given to us," said Engdahl.
Asked by Stedman as to whether
he indorsed the position taken by the
party in the St. Louis platform, Eng-
dahl stated that he approved of it.
"What was the policy of The Amer-
ican Socialist toward the war?" asked
Stedman.
5.000 PORTUGUESE HELD
AS POLITICAL PRISONERS
PARIS-
cit z 'tis h
lit iea 1 prii
Affon Cos
Fix e thousand Portuguese
ive been held as secret po-
ioners for more than a year,
ita, former Portuguese pre-
I \(.1ISII PROTEST. TOO.
British Socialists in a statement
signed by Kier Hardie and Arthur
Henderson said. "The long-threat-
ened European war is upon us. The
people have not been consulted as to
whether they want war." The decla-
ration urged mass meetings to protest
against the entrance of England into
the war. stating that participation
won 1X3 be a disaster to the working-
class movement.
A statement by J. Ramsey McDoh-
old, Socialist member of parliament,
said: "We are not righting for the
independence of Belgium. We are
fighting as members of the triple En-
tente against the triple alliance. The
war is not in the interests of the peo-
ple but for the lft nefit of the bankers
and manufacturers."
Engdahl stated that he had been I ('j^
selected by the national executive I
committee to edit The American So- ....
cialist and that his appointment had
been ratified by the national commit-
t. n„nT„t !n f AUSTRIAN CROWN LANDS
party from all over the country. He
stated that he was responsible for
what appeared in the paper and that
Germer had nothing to do with the
editorial policy.
TELLS OF PAPER'S STRUGGLE.
Engdahl stated in detail the fight
of The American Socialist for exist-
secretaries immediately. She said that I vvou|^
Germer almost never saw such work |
before it left the office.
Mrs. Ray said that she knew Tucker '
and Berger but stated on cross-exami-
nation that she could not recall how
often the latter visited the national
office in 1917.
"You were called 'before the fed-
eral district attorney several times
and also before the grand jury, were
you not?" asked Fleming.
"Yes, and I was treated pretty
mean, too," she said. The witness
said that her two brothers had volun-
teered for service in the army.
Bertha Hale Brown, Germer's sec-
retary, testified that mail from the na-
tional office had been held up by the | to Vladivostok,
postal authorities for several months. ] came. It then
EVEN GOT COMMISSIONS.
Under date of Nov. 1, 1917—some
two weeks before the fall of Kerensky
—the commissions were issued to offi-
cers in this organization. The prac-
tical railroad builders who took the
i commissions, as well as the men who
: enlisted under them, were fully con-
! vinced they were joining the United
States army, with exactly the same
i status as the men who went to France
to build railroads. Their commissions
I came from the war department, and
; state that the president had chosen
i them fflr these commissions. The
officers" were notified that they
be sworn into the service of
the United States.
ButHhey never were given an op-
portunity to take the oath to the
United States government. Instead,
when they reached San Francisco they
were reluctantly permitted for the
first time to wear the insignia of their
military rank, and even then they
were given such confusing and con-
tradictory information as to what
they were, in the military organiza-
tion. that they realized that their
status was at least questionable.
HELD I P IN JAPAN.
They were held up a long time in
Japan, awaiting the order to proceed
Finally that order
the mail.
n declared in an interview with
The Matin Friday. These men were
whippt ti and otherwise tortured. One
of the victims of this modern inquisi-
tion was even executed, Costa said,
irisoners, according to Costa, in-
1 former ministers, former pres-
! of the chamber, senators, dep-
offieers, soldi-, rs and sailors.
TO BE SEIZED BY COUNCIL
COPENHAGEN—The Austrian na-
! tlonal council decided to confiscate all
j crown lands, according to dispatches
here Friday. The imperial castle will
I be converted into a children's home.
appeared that they
District Attorney Clyne produced j were not to be simply builders of rail-
envelopes in an attempt to show that • roads in Russia and Siberia for the
sufficient postage had not been put on \ benefit of the cause of the United
States in the war, but were to act as
! a railroad construction force under
«Tnn/r .'he orders and in the direct pay of
NEWSPAf ERMEN STRIKE the "Russian government."
At that moment there were four or
five sets of political carpetbaggers in
Siberia—Horvath, Orloff, Semenoff
and others—claiming to be the "Rus-
sian government."
When the American victims of this
wierd performance by the Washing-
ton authorities realized their plight,
some of them got «into communication
with members of congress, asking for
some assurance that they were to be
considered as a part of the American
army. They asked that at least they
be given insurance under the war
risk insurance act. since the war risk
insurance bureau had ruled that the
Russian Railway Service corps wns
not entitled to receive insurance.
SUSPENDS BERLIN DAILIES
BERLIN—A strike of newspaper
workers has forced more than a dozen
dailies to suspend publication. Efforts
to effect a compromise with the work-
ers. w ho demand an increase in wages,
have failed. Among newspapers which
were unable to publish were The
Tageblatt, The Lokal Anzeiger, The
Voissische Zeltung and The Morgen-
poflt.
COLORED DEMOCRACY TO
SEND 11 PEACE ENVOYS
risk bureau lived up to its general
reputation by issuing policies to sev-
eral men in the corps, although it was
notifying them that it could not issue
any such insurance!
Myers may have made some effort
to get someone to slip a rider into an
appropriation bill, granting the priv-
ileges of army insurance to the rail-
road exiles in Siberia, but he has
never made any noise about it. So far
as the average member of the senate
or house is concerned, the Russian
Railway Service corps might be a
bodyguard for Trotsky, organized in
Moscow.
. LEGION SWALLOWED \ \*.
They never heard of it unless some
constituent, who more than a year
ago sailed away to Siberia to build
railroads for the winning of the war
for democracy, has written home his
exasperation and anger at finding
himself a hired man of some fly-by-
night "government" that is under a
triumvirate one day, a dictator the
next, a secret council the third and in
headlong flight before a crowd of
workingmen the fourth day.
This lost legion of railway builders
has been swallowed up. like thousands
of other men who went to Siberia and
Russia with the zeal of crusaders, to
apply their scientific knowledge in be-
half of democracy in the great new
Socialist republic.
ACTED I N I)ER L VNSING?
Such information as comes through
from Vladivostok and Harbin indi-
cates that the war department has
acted n this matter under the dilu-
tion of Secret arx of State Lansmv.
and that the latest explanation is that
the reactionary Russian politicians in
Siberia are being furnished the money
from the treasury of the United
States, as a "Russian loan." to pay tty-
railway service corps. But the coHfcs
is neither under the authority nor
protection of our government. The
men seem to have been delivered over
to the Semenoff-Horvath-Kolchak
monarchist plotters. regardless of
their own wishes.
Here is material for the investiga-
tion into our strange Russian policy,
as demanded by Senator Johnson,
California.
23.000 WORKERS QUIT JOBS
IN SYMPATHY WALKOUT
SCHENECTADY, N. Y.—Twenty-
three thousand employes of the Sche-
nectady plant of the General Electric
Co. walked out Thursday morning in
sympathy with strikers at the Erie
plant of the company. The men say
officials of the company have refused
to recognize their union, and that 10
employes were discriminated against.
The company denied this..
There was no disorder.
STRIKE IN PITTSPIELD.
P1TTSFI ELD, Mass.—A majority of
the 6,000 employes of the General
Electric Co. here marched out Thurs-
day in accordance with the plan of
union operatives at General Electric
plants in the country.
WASHINGTON—The National Col
ored Congress for World Democracy,
which closed -sessions here Thursday
under the auspices of the National
Equal R ghts league, elected 11 peace
commissioners to go to Versailles and !
present a petition for "abolition of all j
undemocratic restrictions" against the ' corf
LIVED UP TO REPUTATION.
One of the officers who made such
a request was answered by Sanator
Myers, Montana, to the effect that
Myers had tried to get congress to
bring the Russ an Railway Service
under the insurance act. but
race
without succe?
Meanwhile, the war
20.000 ITALIAN SOLDIERS
WANT TO RETURN TO U. S.
ROME—Twenty thousand demobil-
ized soldiers have applied to the com-
missioner of emigration for permis-
sion to return to America. The com-
missioner ruled those having: families
in America would be given preference
in the matter of passports.
A
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Ameringer, S. The Oklahoma Leader (Oklahoma City, Okla.), Vol. 5, No. 27, Ed. 1 Thursday, December 26, 1918, newspaper, December 26, 1918; (https://gateway.okhistory.org/ark:/67531/metadc148659/m1/2/?q=j+w+gardner: accessed June 20, 2024), The Gateway to Oklahoma History, https://gateway.okhistory.org; crediting Oklahoma Historical Society.