G. E. WOODBERRY.
Poisoning the Well of Public
Opinion
ALIENS in this country must assist in maintaining the liberty they enjoy, or we shall know the reason why.
“Ninety-five per cent. of the people of the United States would die as willingly for their beliefs as the men of 1776. It is for the other 5 per cent. to show not the slightest manifestation of disloyalty.
“Our message to them will be delivered through the criminal courts all over the land. And may God have mercy on them, for they need expect none from an outraged people and an avenging government.”
—Speech of Attorney-General Gregory in New York,
November, 1917.
The Enemy Within
NOT even the prodigious Cruelty of the Germans in this Atrocious War has shocked the moral sense of mankind as much as has their Deceit. We are horror-stricken by the reports of their premeditated cruelties which link the Germans with the beasts—the wolf, and tiger, and boa constrictor, and vulture. The beast does these things because he has never risen to a higher plane than that of the beast. But Deceit is the attribute of Man; of one who dwells above the standards of the brute creation, who has had the moral sense developed in him, who has known the compulsions of conscience, who has acknowledged the obligations of duty, and has recognized himself as being a striver after the Ultimate Good. Through some flaw in the German’s nature all these qualities in him changed, turned bad, and he hailed Evil as his guide and inspiration. Whatever of good there was in him he uses to promote his wicked designs. Had he not been human he could never have understood how to make his perverted nature work successfully to deceive his fellow-men. The snake and panther do not deceive us, we know their ways and guard against them. But the moral pervert can deceive, because he hides his purpose and his method behind the mask of a counterfeited virtue.