The twice-a-week Twin Falls times. (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1916-1918, 1917-04-03
SENATOR WILLIAMS CAS-
TIGATES THE FILIBUSTERERS
Defending the Presidents "Wilfnl
Senator's" The Mississippi States
man Incidentally Skins The Offend
ers and Rubs in the Salt.

u anu nuns ia tnt l11lt@
To a letter from a New York Ger
man, who bitterly protested the Pres
idents criticism of the twelve recalci-
trant senator's. Senator John Sharp
Williams scathingly replied, in part,
as follows:
There is nothing which "justifies
the executive in impugning the honor
and probity of any senator except a
senator who is lacking in honor and
prObity. and in proper respect to the
honor and safety of the nation-then
surely the president is not verbally
castrated merely because he is
presidented, and has as much right to
express his disapproval as you or l.
"These men of whom he expressed
his disapproval make me tired. Your
talk about their obeying their consci-
ences is wide of the mark. Their con-
sciences could have been satisfied by
their speeches and by their votes, but
there is nothing in the word of con-
science requiring them to deprive the
balance of us the right to vote
"Flibustering upon small matters is
harmless and frequently an amusing
game, but filibustering to prevent the
senate of the United States from ex-
pressing its opinion in connection with
a matter of public safety and national
honor is absolutely intolerable and the
president would have been a craven
and a fool both if he had not taken
advantage of the occasion to shame
the senate and make it do what it
partially has done, to-wit:
adopt a rule which enables at
least two-thirds to force a vote and
assert the fact that the senate is a
law-making body l wanted a major
ity rule. l don't see much good done
by the two-thirds rule, because if the
worst comes to the worst, two-thirds
can eXpel a member without any rea-
son.
81 did not know we have been max
ing up our minds to harry the sen
ate but God knows the senate needs
marrying. 1t was sinking into justified
public contempt.
"All this talk about the munitions
manufacturers and Wall street stir
ring up war feeling is nonsense Meth
er the munition manufacturers nor
Wall street, sank the Lusitania, nor
the Arabic, nor the Sussex, nor the
Laconia, nor published the German
note threatening to go further and
sink everything.
81 deny your statement that our
country has not been fair from the be-
ginning Anybody who wants to put
upon an equal footing the character
of violations of our neutral rights per-
petrated by Great Britain and France
and the character of violations of any
neutral rights perpetrated by Ger
many can't see the difference between
a prize court and a torpedo. To my
mind there is vast difference be-
tween a bale of cotton and a human
life.
IF you had no argument to submit
as to the wrongs of the belligerents,
or whether it was incumbent upon us
to support one side or the other, l fail
to see why you write me at all
1T is true that there have been vio-
lations of neutral rights by both sides
but nobody with a particle of human
ity in his makeup can put the two
characters of violation upon the same
footing
1--WE have just been informed by
Germany that she will sink our ships
as we'll as our citizens upon the ships
of other nations, if we dare come
within a zone of fire which she has
drawn, unless we came on our way to
Falmouth with our ships painted like
a barber pole.
IF you are willing to put up with
that sort of thing l am mott nor am
willing to take William ] Bryan's
position. You have kicked me twice
nd Won biol will
liver you a lecture
you may not see the difference be-
tween highway robbery and highway
assassination, but l do, and although
the use of submarines in the manner
in which Germany proposes, or says
she proposes to use them, may not be
highway, it is at least sea assassina-
ton.
I would rather be a dog and die
without any Immortality than to sub
NIT not only to injury but to insult
/ think a gentleman would rather be
| injured than insulted. Germany's po-
sition towards us has been purely one
of insult.
"The men who carried on the fill
buster in the senate knew that the
senate had to adjourn at u O'Clock
noon on March 4, In spite or tnell
claims that it is a continuous body "a
continuous body which cannot con-
tinue itself must be called in session
by somebody else), was the situation
which confronted them. if the senate
be a continuous body at all
81 don't sit in judgment on the mo
tives of men, but I do know that il
is a principle of law and a principle
OF common sense, that all men, mo-
idiots or lunatics, are to be Judged by
the natural consequences Of their owl
conduct. These men do not even claim
to be lunatics or idiots. They knew
what they were doing and presumably
thew intended to do 1t.
"You say that the president was
wrong in denouncing men who die
nothing except to take advantage O
! their conceded privilege. You forge