September 12, 1918
The absolute prerequisite for successful self-government in any people is the power of self-restraint which refuses to follow either the wild-eyed extremists of radicalism or the dull-eyed extremists of reaction. Either set of extremists will wreck the Nation just as certainly as the other. The Nation capable of self-government must show the Abraham Lincoln quality of refusing to go with either. The dreadful fall which has befallen Russia is due to the fact that when her people cast off the tyranny of the autocracy, they did not have sufficient self-control and common sense to avoid rushing into the gulf of Bolshevist anarchy.
In this country there are plenty of highbrow Bolsheviki who like to think of themselves as intellectuals, and who in parlors and at pink teas preach Bolshevism as a fad. They are fatuously ignorant that it may be a dangerous fad. Some of them are mere make-believe, sissy Bolsheviki, almost or quite harmless. Others are sincere and foolish fanatics, who mean well and who do not realize that their doctrines tend toward moral disintegration. But there are practical Bolsheviki in this country who are in no sense highbrows. The I.W.W. and the Non-Partisan League, just as long and so far as its members submit to the dominion of leaders like Mr. Townley, represent the forces that under Lenine and Trotzky have brought ruin to Russia. If these organizations obtained power here, they would cast this country into the same abyss with Russia.
The I.W.W. activities may have been officially set forth by the Chicago jury which found the I.W.W. leaders guilty of treasonable practices. These leaders protested that they were only trying to help “the wage slave of to-day,” and had not taken German money. But the jury found them guilty as charged. The American people, when fully awake and aroused, will tolerate neither treason nor anarchy. No Americans are more patriotic than the honest American labor men, and these above all had cause to rejoice in the verdict. Undoubtedly there are plenty of poor ignorant men who join the I.W.W. because they feel they do not receive justice. We should all of us actively unite in the effort to right any wrongs from which these men suffer. But we should set our faces like flint against such criminal leadership as that of the I.W.W.
The Non-Partisan League endeavored to ally itself with the I.W.W. since we entered the war. When the League was started, I felt much sympathy with its avowed purposes. I hope for and shall welcome wisely radical action on behalf of the farmer. But only destruction to all of us can come from the venomous class hatred preached by the present leadership of the League. Some of its leaders have been convicted and imprisoned for treasonable activities. Some of the League’s representatives have been actively pro-Germans. Some are Socialists or Socialist-Anarchists. For the first six months of the war and until it became too dangerous, they were openly against the war, against our allies, and for Germany. The only half-secret alliance between these leaders and certain high Democratic politicians is deeply discreditable to the latter. The victory of the League in its recent efforts to gain control of the Republican Party in Minnesota and Montana would have given immense strength to the pro-German and Bolshevist element throughout the country and its defeat was a matter of rejoicing to all right-minded and patriotic men.
Mr. Townley’s leadership in its moral purpose and national effect entitles him to rank with Messrs. Lenine and Trotzky, and the utterances of the League’s official organ, especially in its appeals to class hatred, puts the official representatives of the League squarely in the clan with the Bolshevist leaders who have done such evil in Russia.
I have before me an official letter from the League written in January last refusing to coöperate in non-political work for the benefit of the farmers, saying, “This organization is a political one, the farmers being organized for the purpose of controlling legislation in their own interests.” In other words, the title, Non-Partisan, is a piece of pure hypocrisy, and its league is really partisan in the narrowest and worst sense. Americans should organize politically as Americans and not as bankers, or lawyers, or farmers, or wage-workers. To organize politically on the basis adopted by the League is thoroughly anti-American and unpatriotic, and if copied generally by our citizens, would mean the creation in this country of rival political parties based on cynically brutal class selfishness.
I have no doubt that the rank and file of the members of the League are good, honest people who have been misled. I am certain that there has been much neglect of the rights of the farmers and that it is a high duty for this country to begin a constructive, practical agricultural policy. But no good American can support the League while it is dominated by its present leadership. The Kansans who have joined to fight the League because it represents Bolshevism are rendering a patriotic service to America.
THE FOURTH LIBERTY LOAN
September 17, 1918