The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1917-09-14
SPEECH THAT IS NOT FREE.


A fact habitually overlooked by
most officers of the law is that while
speech is free in this country there
lis no such thing as speech without
responsibility. In public agitation, as
in private conspiracy, every man can
be held for the natural consequences
of his word as well as his deeds.
The disorders of New York and
Chicago arising from attempts to sup.
press meetings of people opposed to
the war should be warning to the
authorities everywhere. If the per-
sons who direct and address these as
semblages seek to thwart the govern
ment war measures, to prevent enlist
ments, to stir up mutiny among the
troops and to promote draft riots,
their purpose will be made clear by
their utterances.
In speech as in action any policy
persisted in becomes evidence of in
tent to obstruct the prosecution Of the
war in defiance of law To call such
proceedings disorderly is to belittle
crimes that border closely upon trea-
son, and to break them up by the use
of police clubs is to fix the guilt
for that particular offense upon the
police and not upon the traitors. Mobs
officially inspired in Broadway and
conflicts between the police and the
militia in Chicago are weak and dan
gerous expressions of misdirected au-
gravest need of circumspection in the
enforcement of law.
Whatever guise these agitators may
assume: if by their preachments they
incite crime they are subject to ar
rest, indictment and punishment by
due process. No guarantee Of free
speech operates in such cases. If by
their repeated declarations it appears
that they are giving aid and comfort
to the enemy, they are guilty of trea-
son, and on the testimonyof two or
more witnesses to the overt act may,
upon conviction, be subjected to the
extreme penalty.
The law prescribing the limitations
upon speech never was more lucidly
set forth than by Judge Joseph E.
Gary of Illinois when in 1886 he pass.
ed sentence upon the Chicago Anar-
chists:
1.-THE law holds each man re-
sponsible for the natural and prob
able consequences of his own
acts. 1t holds that whoever ad-
vises crime is himself guilty
of the crime committed pur-
suant to his advice. II men
band together for a fcrciful re-
sistance to the execution of the
law and advise murder as
means of making such resistance
effectual, all who are so banded
together are guilty of any MUIR
der that is committed in pursu-
ance of such advice The
people are strong enough to pro-
tect and sustain their institutions
and to punish all offenders
against their laws: and those who
threaten danger to society if the
Law is enforced are leading to de-
struction whoever may attempt to
execute such threats"
This judgment was unreservedly
sustained by the United States SUI
preme court Is it conceivable that
law applicable to individuals and
groups is powerless to protect the
Nation when its highest interests are
at stake?
Whether the people who now resist
the war and the draft and seek to
promote revolt in the ranks of our
armies are in German pay or are SIM
ply reckless blatherskites, they are
responsible for every word that they
utter. To mob them is to do them
too much honor and to bring govern
ment into disrepute They violate
some law every time they speak, and
the administration of the law, ma
tional, state and municipal, should
proceed against them soberly, not for
trifling misdemeanors, but for the &C.
tual crimes which they are commit
ting day by day-World.
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