Custer weekly chronicle. [volume] (Custer City, S.D.) 1890-1931, 1916-10-28

ously objects TO the welfare Of Eng.
land being put above the rights and
/ the dignity and the sovereignty OF
the United States is disloyal TO his
country, then the majority of us
Americans are disloyal.
If it is disloyalty to object to and
oppose the policy of an American
President, and to seek to defeat him
at the polls on that account. then
every one of us is traitor, because
at one time or another every one OF
us had done that very thing-includ-
ing Woodrow Wilson himself
| If it is treason to desire to have
the Government of the United States
maintain the law of nations and the
freedom of the seas and the rights
of neutrals against England as well
as against Germany or any other
Power on earth, then nine Americans
in ten are traitors
One of the strongest objections
we have to Mr.. Wilson's administra-
tion of the duties Of the Presidency
is that he has exercised the powers of
that office in an autocratic way which
no monarch in Europe, with the sole
exception of the Gar, would have
dared TO initiate
The members Of the great conven-
tion which, after two years OF earnest
discussion, finally settled upon our
form OF government. were profound
ly anxious to put effective checks up
on the growth of executive power
All through their debates they made
it evident that their chief fear was
that sooner or later the President OF
the Government would eventually
find way to dominate the Congress
and this. they knew well. had spell
ed the downfall of every democratic
republic which had ever been estab-
lished by men.
So they clearly and explicitly
wrote into the Constitution the limi-
tations of the Presidents rightful
powers, which, as they meant them
to be, were simply to carry out the
will Of the Congress as expressed in
laws and resolutions Of instruction.
Mr. Wilson has done exactly what
the men Of the great convention fear
ed some future President would do.
He has made his Democratic Sen
ate and his Democratic House of
Representatives mere clerks to rec
ord his sovereign and imperious will
For all practical purposes, during
the past three years and a half, the
Congress might as well have adjourn
ed and left the reading and engross-
ing clerk in Washington TO set down
Mr. Wilson'S DEGREES.
In better and manlier days OF the
Republic President who should
have so attempted to domineer over
and to usu;p the functions of the
Congress would surely have faced i'm
peachment proceedings
Now we see this imperious and
autocratic conception of his place
and powers which has governed Mr.
Wilson's conduct in office strikingly
displayed in his reply TO Mr.. OLeary.
Opposition TO Mr. Wilson's ideas
is treason
Criticism of the Presidents poll
cies is disloyalty,
Organizing votes against the
Presidents candidacy is traitorous!
Without knowing we have acquir-
ed, as part of our institutions, the
law of lese majestic,
Now, against such a conception of
the august and sacred majesty of
President and such a conception of
the proper humbleness of an Ameri-
can citizen in the presence of Presi-
Dental majesty we enter the most
strenuous objection.
We deny the doctrine Of Pres!-
Dental sacrosanctity.
We reject the proposition that any
American citizen is disloyal because
he objects to or criticises or opposes
With all his might the policies of
whatever administration is in au-
thority.
The very foundation stone of our
free institutions and our personal
liberties is the right to express pri-
vate opinion and to organize public
opinion against public servants
whose policies and conduct seem to
any of us TO be wrong or dangerous.
Viewed in this light, this particu-
lar case ceases to be the individual
case of jeremiah OLeary and be-
comes the public concern of all you
citizens. Because if one President
of the United States is to be permit
ted TO set up the doctrine that OPP
position to and criticism of his poll
cies is treason and disloyalty. the
time will surely come when some
other resident OF the United States
will translate that theory into ac-
tion-and the Republic and its liber-
ties and its noble institutions Of ord
erly freedom of speech and of con-
duct will go the way of all the other
republics which have perished at the
hands OF ambitious autocrats.
AS TO the concrete issue involved
in this exchange between Mr.. OLeary
and President Wilson, it seems to us
that the situation is precisely this:
AS an American citizen Mr. o.
Leary puts loyalty TO America above
loyalty 10 England
His disloyalty is not to America,
but to a foreign government
Now, If il is true that Mr.. Wilson
does not want the vote of any Ameri-
can who is disloyal to England, when
the conduct Of the English govern
ment is grossly and illegally injur-
ious to the welfare and the rights
and the national honor OF the United