The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1917-07-05
THE LECTURE OF MRS. O'HARE

Kate Hare, editor OF the notorious
Rip Saw. 1t was noticeable that prac-
tically all of the audience was COM
posed of foreign born men and women
and their children. The most of these
men and women, who reside in our
different communities, have won the
respect and admiration of their neigh
bors by their honesty, economy and
the manner in which they go about
their daily tasks. That these people,
who have come to America to escape
the bondage of autocratic government
should participate in action that bor-
ders on disloyalty to their adopted
country, was somewhat of shock to
other Hood River citizens. Nor can
we believe that Mrs. O'Hare, despite
her artifice and wiles, her fanaticism
and zeal, was able to sow many seeds
of her poisonous doctrine here.
II have gone to the very doors of
death four times and brought back a
son, declared the fluent Mrs. O'Hare,
and then she launched veiled TRADE
against the draft act. I'VE social
ists," she declared, "have been ac-
cused of doctrine that would rob the
family of the right to raise the child.
and here we have the government
stepping in and demanding our sons"
Ms. o Hare's lecture was the type
of theory that we have heard for so
many years expounded by fanatics and
failures, who have espoused cause
that allows them to give vent to their
wrath on society and successful fellow
men. Most all of US have heard such
talks from street corner soap boxes.
We used to laugh at it and not take it
very seriously. Our great democratic
government has been very tolerant, as
democratic governments should be.
But since April we have entered the
worlds greatest war, and the talk of
such fanatics as Mrs. O'Hare should
be stopped.
This woman, who was here to ad-
dress Hood River socialists, enjoys
dwelling on those phrases that char
acterize the working classes as slaves
and she would refrain from war that
they might be free. We wonder what
kind of chaos would exist if she and
such as the would have their way.
Do you, who heard Mrs. O'Hare
stop to consider that this war in which
the United States has entered is for
the very purpose of granting for all
time to all peoples of the world the
great privilege of free and untram-
meled enjoyment of human liberties?
Mrs. O'Hare's very doctrine is made
up of most absurd lot of contradic-
tions. If she had her way every mans s
and woman's activities would be set in
motion, not for the advancement of
the individual, but for an apportion-
ment of the results among all, and
here we find her crying out against the
great act calling for the universal
military service of all of our sons, the
boys reared by Millionaire fathers as
we'll as by fathers who work in shop,
factory and dig in the soil. According
to Mrs. O'Hare the relationships be-
tween government snd the individual
are one sided.
And we say again that the zeal of
such as Mrs. O'Hare, whether real or
feigned, is dangerous and should be
curbed. 1t is apparent that some of
the leading spirits of the American
socialist party are open allies of the
kaiser. All of those who follow the
dictates or hearken to the nefarious
insinuations of such as "Red Kate"
are making of themselves enemies of
their countries and are endeavoring to
tear down the very principles of
society that grant them protection.
Along with our word of warning we
would have our men and women, whose
train of thought has been tainted by
unscrupulous leaders, read the follow
ing from the Flag Day address of
President Wilson:
''They (the draft critics. have learned
discretion. They keep within the law.
1t is opinion they utter now, not
sedition. They proclaim the liberal
purposes of their masters declare this
foreign war which can touch Amer
! lea with no danger to either her lands
or her institutions; set England at the
center of the stage and talk of her
ambition to assert economic dominion
throughout the world; appeal to our
ancient tradition of isolation in the
politics of the nations, and seek to
undermine the government with false
professions of loyalty to its principles.
"But they will make no headway.
The false betray themselves always in
every accent. 1t is only friends and
partizans of the German government
whom we have already identified who
utter these thinly disguised disloyal-
ties, The facts are patent to all the
world, and nowhere are they more
plainly seen than in the United States
where we are accustomed to deal with
facts and not with sophristries and
the great fact that stands out above
all the rest is that this is a people S
war, war for freedom and justice and
self government among all the nations
of the world, war to make the world
safe for the peoples who live upon it
and have made it their own, the Ger
man people themselves included and
that with us rests the choice to break
through all these hypocrisies and pat
ent cheats and masks of brute force
and help set the world free, or else
stand aside and let it be dominated a
long age through by sheer weight of
arms and the arbitrary choices of self
constituted masters, by the nation
which can maintain the biggest armies
and the most irrasitihlo oryo op,ants