The daily Nome industrial worker., 1917-02-27

then class decisions mar judicial | probity, persecution of the toilers | takes the place of formal unbiased | prosecution of wrong doers, when | the forces of the nation are used | not for the maintenance of strict | and even handed justice, but for the suppression of economic efforts to better the conditions of those strug- gling to do so, surely it is against such obvious national dissertations that all legislation should turn.
 The experience of everyone leads directly to the fact that when honest and fair and conscientious officials have the custody of the government
 tai duties they and the flag will be
 met with due esteem and respect.
 It is when the high functions Of
 government are prostituted for per sonal profit or corporate interests or
 the extension of privilege that both
 those officials guilty of such scan-
 dalous conduct and the flag under
 which they operated will fall into
 disrepute.
 It is when we go further afeld
 that this fact becomes of reader re-
 cognition It is notorious that ty-
 rannical, despotic and corrupt gov
 ernments in other lands have to
 make their flags respected not in the hearts of the people but in the
 outward seeming. The reason for
 this is because of the identification
 exists in mems minds between the
 despotism of the rulers and .he flag
 which stands for that despotism.
 Moreover the law cannot force
 respect for anything. It can as far
 as the outward showing under pain
 of punishment compel circumspec- , tion. The flag as the symbolic re- ! presentation of the nation and the l national principles is to 'be honored , and only honored in the hearts of } the citizens. Love of the flag means ; love for which the flag stands, and } to make the flag honored at all / times. it is essential that the nation and the national acts should always 1 be above reproach, above suspicion = and above criticism.
 A great writer once said that every flag at one time stood for free l dom. He excepted none. And he = significantly suggested that as the ) nation evolved, so what the fiaG t stood for evolved as the positive ! symbol.
 |. If under the folds of the Amer 9 ican flag there exists grievance, t sense of injustice, a spirit of dis r content for the disabilities under t when men labor, feeling that in : equitable conditions prevail, the be : lief that the privileged are allowed . to enjoy more privileges at the ex l pense of the unprivileged, that COT r rupt, base, unfit, dishonest, graft - ing, unfair, biased, prosecuting of e ficials and official prostitutes exises |. it is the clear duty to the nation { and the flag that such be removed . or the inevitable result will be tha I the flag will share the disgrace an( T, dishonor and disesteem whiih thes' f unworthy servants of the people r who in point of fact were not tn r servants of the people but of certail : interests which enslave the peopl 0 for their own ends--have brough g about.
 n Moreover, the moment that on l. begins to discern that the flag o I any nation is not honored in tn C hearts of men, it is high time tha e before legislation is passed to mak ' them outwardly give honor, to dis l. cover the reason why and to remov s the reason. Men failed to compe t other men to worship in their heart > although they made them indee t conform, but an hypocrisy like tha j. Is just as evil, if not more degrad > ing than the condition it propose e to remedy.