Iditarod pioneer., 1917-06-30
POWERS OF GOVERNMENT UNLIMITED IN WAR TIME
 TO PUNISH DISLOYALTY


 to arrest anyone uttering anything detrl- mental to the government or its officers,
 according to the Juneau Empire.
 Circular letters have been mailed from the office of the governor to all United States marshals and United States com missioners calling their attention to the provisions of the law and the proclamation of the President The officials were ln- structed to start preparing to handle the work of registration of all persons in the outlying sections, and also to prepare to
 arrest all those who evade or attempt to evade the provisions of the registration act
 What Was Done in Previous Wars
 The question of the powers of govern ment in war time to punish dlsloyalty and the utterance of disloyai sentiments IS not
 thoroughly understood, and especially Tn the Iditarod district has been the subject of
 animated discussion. It may be opportune to detail what has been done in previous wars to gain an idea of the almost unlimited powers exercised by the government when the safety of the country IS menaced. J. B. Morrow, a we'll known writer, tells in the Cincinnati Enquirer how tory print CTS, during the time of the revolutionary war were warned that the publication Of lovaIlst pamphlets meant ''death and de structlon. ruin and perdition." In New York before the revolution tories supposed to be dangerous were banished. Everywhere throughout the colonies tories were dlS- armed, and in many instances their prop erty was conhscated Mir Roosevelt in his Life of Gouverneur Morris, says that had | .l, oFRI had they possessed the stubborn, unylelding tenaclty
 and high devotion to an ideal shown by the North, or the heroic constancy and match less valor shown by the South Tn the clvll war the British would have been driven off the continent before three years were over.' They were driven off, but at the end of seven years. The tories prolonged the war, but they could not change the result, and thousands of them were killed and thousands of others lost their prop erty and became pensioners of the British
 government to be despised by the English,
 as the copperheads were despised by the Confederates. No loyalist," said one of them, "ean endure to live under the i'm perious laws of Washington and his min ions'
 Sixty thousand tories fled from and
 through New York to Canada and Nova Scotia, to be fed like children by the Eng fish. The only son of Benjamin Franklin was a tory. Among the loyailsts were wealthy landowners, lawmakers, physlclans, ctergymen, teachers, merchants, farmers, mechanics. politicians and farm laborers. They said that war was unnecessary that peace wasted no lives, no property; that negotiation, in the then state of progress and humanity, had superseded muskets and sabers
 In the wars of the American people, ex- cept possibly those in early days with the Indians, there have been obstructlonlsts and others some of whom have felt "the firm hand of stern repression The hand on two occasions was Washingtons and Lin coln's. This year it will be Woodrow WiF sons.
 In the Civil War
 During the civil war President Lincoln
 was called upon to deal with the copper heads of the North, and Is quoted as say ing q think that the time Is not unlikely
 to come when l shall be blamed for having made too few arrests rather than too many"
 The Northern ja,Is were then filled with copperhcads, and Lincoln asked, Must l shoot the simple minded soldier boy who deserts. while l must not touch 8 hair of
 the wiiv agtator who induces him to de sert?"
 Secretary Seward had every person com | ing into or leaving the country watched by special agents at ports along the Atlantlc
 ocean and on the Great Lakes. Officers of | the army. United States marshals and chiefs of police were directed to perform the work Arrests were made for supplying
 the enemy with arms or provisions for help ing or purposing to help organize troops for the enemy; for selling the bonds of states | that had been withdrawn from the Union :; i for discouragng enlistments in the Federal | or encouraging enlstments in the Confed- i crate army; for expressing sympathy with 1 the South and for attackln gthe Lincoln ad
 mlnistration
 President Lincoln meted out rather i ludicrous punishment to an ex-Congressman
 named Valfandigham in Ohio, who was
 particularly blatant. He shipped him be- hind the Confederate hnes. But the South erners were not enamored of him, and he found his way to Canada by way of Der
 muda, and finally back home, where he
 was ignored.
 1 Lincoln ignored writ of habeas corpus issued by Chief Justice Fancy of the su-
 preme court, under which a prisoner was
 ordered to be brought into court and heard.
 ''To state the question more directly, are | all the laws but one to go unexecuted, and the government itself go to pieces lest that | one be vioated?" asked Lincoln.
 Power to Suspend Habeas Corpus 1 President Wilson has power to suspend
 the writ of habeas corpus lin case of re-
 bellion or treason" quoting the language of
 the constitution, and when the public
 safety requires it." Thus persons supposed
 to be disloyal to the country can be thrown
 into prison and kept there, even though
 they have never been tried and convicted.
 Agents of the government, acting for the l President, can take a man out of his own house. in time of war; and keep him behind
 bars indefinitely.
 During the seven and a half months in
 which Secretary Seward carried on the
 work of detecting the enemies of the gov | ernment and had the care of political pris-