The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-07-06
Freedom Of Speech.

and confessed to attempt to blow UP the Ma
tional Capitol has for some years been college
professor, and he recently received degree from
one of the great universities of the country. This
does not form indictment against college pro-
fessors but it does show that they not all
immune from brain storms which develop from
cgotism and sclf-centered consciences. Holt was
classed as an intellectual a guide to youth in
intellectual discipline and development, and he
went out from the classroom to secure dynamite
to blow up the National Capitol. If his letter,
dated June I, is genuine, he made his plans for
this dastardly work while he was considered a
thoroughly sane and safe teacher in the classroom
at Cornell
The sensational development of his insanity
comes at a time when they are having merry
row over in Philadelphia because the trustees of
the university failed to re-employ one of the pro-
fessors. This particular professor lid that he
would rather see his son in hell than in the Epis-
copal Academy. His friends claim that he is en-
titled to his own views dictated by his conscience,
and that he was dropped because the trustees were
not willing that the truth should be taught in the
university The quarrel has been taken up by the
preachers and denuncatons of the trustees have
Numbered from number of pulpts for placing
limitations on free speech and padlocks the
truth of the land. All these ASSERTIONS may be
true and vet not serious indictment against those
who are responsible for the funds that support
the university. Free speech ought to be restrained
by common and common decency, and con-
science ought to be governed by some regard for
the rights and opinions of others, when these
sensitive conscences belong to college profess
sors.
This man Holt claims to be a native of West
crn State where there has been much of the same
kind of agitation and abuse of the legislature
which cut off some OF the appropriations for the
State University and curtailed of the ac-
Invites OF the professors who assumed to super
wise the legislation enacted by those elected by
the people to do that work. Reform" had been
appropriated by the professors and when it be-
came too expensive for the tax payers there was
revolt against the intellectual overload of the
State. There has been the same kind of abuse
OF the politicians in Wisconsin in Philadelphia,
but the people appear to have sustained the legis-
lature.
Neither Holt nor college professors anywhere
hold monopoly the exaggeration of the doc
trine of free speech and the dictates OF con-
science 1t has been the sheet anchor OF popu-
lar lecturers and reformers in recent years. They
have gone about the country preaching against
wealth, business, social customs and all old estab
lished usages, and they have exercised such free
dom of speech sent to the gallows the men
who inspired the bomb throwing in the Hay
market of Chicago twenty-five years ago. But
these modern preachers of discomfort have been
called ntellectuals and have been tolerated. They
have laid down moral laws which were their own
inventions, have assumed to fix moral standards
for the whole people, placed limitations bust
corrupt men in public place and those who have
the confidence OF their fellows in business who
do not conform to the dictates OF the sensitive
consciences of these intellectual leaders.
If common sense aided by the saving sense
OF humor were not the common inheritance Of
the American people, this much boosted freedom
OF speech guided by conscience without regard
to the quality of conscience, would soon lead to
decentralization and anarchy. But the great
American public is capable of judging the sanity
and the honesty of a super heated conscience
whether it rcposes in the breast OF an intellectual
rcformcr in that OF ignoramus, and we
go along tolerating free speech even when we
know that it may result in short-crcuitng the
mentality and the conscience OF just such men
Frank Holt who though native born and
teacher had conscience which dictated murder
and the destruction OF the National Capitol
which, crowned with the statue of Freedom, is
the emblem OF liberty.
President Wilson recently said we in this
country do not operate in groups and he might
have added that VIC do not recognize classes, even
intellecuals who above the legal restraints
which apply to the banker, the lawyer, the poll
tcian and the who works on the street or
in the shop. This Hollis insanity might
have only manifested itself in teaching such doc
trines he tried to carry out in horrible reality,
and there might have been raised howl against
suppressing free speech in the classroom if the
trustees OF Cornell had considered it their duty
to dispense with his services