New-York tribune., 1917-12-08

To the Editor Of The Tribune.
Sir: I have just read with considerable
amusement Professor Cattel's wall apropos
Of that precious gagged minority" 1t re-
minded me of those immortal lines of the
ancient hymnologist, Isaac Watts: "Hark,
from the tomb dolcful sound"
II is excruciatingly comical to note the
martyred air which the pacifsts, conscien-
tous objectors and Hun spologsts assume
when public opinion throws the searchlight
Of pure patriotism into the darkened caves
where the academic obfuscators and radical
pervcrts mutter their incantations over the
high altars Of Bolsheviksm.
The gay and festive burglar is highly in
dignant when the officer of the law taps him
on the shoulder Does he not feel that he,
too, has, under the Constitution, an inalien-
able right to life, liberty and the pursuit OF
happiness? When he is placed under ar
rest his feelings are deeply outraged because
his constitutional rights have been inter-
fered with. The altruistic burglar stren-
uously objects to the action of that despotlc
and unfeeling majority which for the sake
Of public welfare has decided that limita-
ton must be put to such constitutional
rights which include the pursuit and appro-
pration of other peoples property.
wabbers and Visonaries
Just now that legal burglar, the Kaiser, has
decreed that under a constitution Of his de-
vising he /. entitled to appropriate the
earth, and later on the sun. moon and stars,
A. ham In
imperial business. A world majority has
decided that the Kaiser is endangering the
constitutional rights of others. and, much TO
the disgust Of the Hillquits, Bergers, Maiones,
the PROFESSIONAL wabbles, academic vision
aries and Bolshevkist revolutionists, that
imperial autocrat is to be forcibly restrained
from further world larceny and universal
butchery.
II /, exceedingly amusing to one who has
been in the socialist movement for nearly
thirty years, who knows that movement from
ton 70 bottom, and has watched it grow with
the same concern and devotion that mother
views the growth of the one and only child
of her bosom. to note the profound interest
that is now being manifested by certain
emotional clerics, irascible professors and
half baked politicians in the Kaiserized
Socialist" party.
This weird aggregation of political ex-
plorcrs is exh biting much the same paroxys-
nal rapture that sweeps the soul of the
youthful hen when she discovers she has
aid perfectly beautiful egg and is the
prospective mother of thoroughly respect
able chicken.
Kaiserism Substituted for Socialism
When the Germanized Socialist party was a
real Socialist party and confined its activities
to preaching economic regeneration and
social uplift and had as its candidates for
Office men of good old American stock, the
vote that it polled in this city at least was
comparatively insignificant, and the political
explorers, economic specialists and academic
Investigators regarded the movement with
undisguised contempt.
Then came the war, and the whole COM
plexon of the party changed in the twinklng
of an eye Kaserism was substituted for
Socialism, dsloyalty for loyalty; America,
which had been on the inside looking out,
was now on the outside looking in, and the
"Marseillaise" was replaced by "Deutsch-
land Uber Allies" and "Die Wacht am
Rhein."
The party, with an American candidate Of
the Charles Edward Russell type, running for
Navor or Governor could poll only beRgarly