The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-11-17

cumstantial parttcularity. Sometimes,
 as in the casebof most slumbering par
 ties, it conducts this examination with
 the naivete of, child picking its toes.
 Usually, however, 1t rises to higher
 spiritual level and seems to the obser- yer to be diligently searching it's heart
 and penitently confessing its faults to
 the end that it may know itself and es-
 cape from the wrath to cmoe.
 This position of modern society has
 been outlined because people need to
 have it explained to them that in the fight between Hull House and it's news paper critics Hull House is not the un- der dog. The newspaper critic is the
 under dog. All the forces of the age
 are with Hull House. The stars in I their courses are fighting for Hull House In the overwhelming tide of free speech the attack on Hull House is a
 pitiful little back eddy. The men who object to free speech may be philosphi- cally right, but they are chronogically l wrong.
 They would also be neglibly wrong were it not for the literary interest l that attaches to the practical joke which history has played on them. The newspaper which began the attack on Hull House stands for the principles which made the French Revolution. | These principles are personal liberty and individual political equality. Bear | this point in mind for moment while l considering the immediate cause of the Hull House episode.
 ffTN1Tcraon " ahc Ua fnNyifad fn speak at Hull House. Eugene V. Debs 1 is follower of Karl Marx. The opin- l ions of Karl Marx are subversive of society. Therefore such opinions should not be disseminated. Therefore Hull House should not have invited Eugene V. Debs to speak," This was the course of argument followed by the most enthusiastically Jeffersonian pa-
 per in Chicago. % Would that this paper could be transported to London and that the year 1903 could be changed to the year
 1920! The argument followed by the enthusiastically Metteraichian authori- ties of that time would then, run some thing like this: "The morning Jeffer- sonian is disseminating the principles of the French Revolution. The princi- ples of the French Revolution are sub versive of society. Therefore the morn ing Jeffersonian must be suppressed and the editors of the morning Jeffer.- sonian must accompany Leigh Hunt to
 the Surrey jail" ..s
 What would the Jeffersonian poIltf- cal democraats of hundred years ago have thought if they could have fore seen that their successors would be at tempting to scourge the Marxian social democrats with the same rod with
 which their own backs were then
 bloody? Are the opinions of Karl Marx
 subversive of society? Certainly.
 Were the opinions of Thomas Jefferson
 subversive of society? Certainly. And
 the word subversive will have to be
 used in exactly the same sense in both
 cases. M..
 This does not mean that Karl Marx is
 right. It does not mean that Thomas Jefferson was right. Perhaps both Thomas Jefferson and Ksrl Marx will finally be seen to have been wrong It
 means simply that if opinions which were called subversive of society were
 always guaranteed by the authorities,
 the newspaper which began the attack
 on Hull House would never come into existence.
 The fact is thats the impetus which
 Jeffersonianism gave to free speech has not yet expended itself. On the contra ry, it has gathered force as 1t proceed ed. Society is more than ever deter mined to study all it's parts and to give every cell of it's whole structure a tongue. Therefore it protects not only principles, but opinions; not only phil losophies, but vagaries; not only argu-
 mentations, but maunderings. Nothing shall remain unexpressed. Everything shall reveal itself. Nowhere shall there
 be silence. Everywhere shall there be light and sound. This is modern socie- tvs working hypothesis. People who do not like it are to be commiserated.
 In their next incarnation may they light upon more congenial era! This incarnation cannot but be very unpleas- ant for them.--William Hard, of the
 Chicago Tribune, in the Commons.