Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1918-06-05
A PAINFUL EFFORT.

the state, at the expense OF the post
Office department
This is his speech, delivered in the
Senate on May 2, 1918, on The confer
ence report on the espionage bin, chs
passage of which he, with a few othel
obstructionists. opposed so far as h.
was able.
1t is obvious from a casual reading
of this effort-a painfully labored eff
fort-that Senator Hardwick delivered
it entirely for home consumption. He
evidently had in mind at the time the
printing of it afterwards by the thous-
ands, so that he could reach the voters
directly with this feeble defense of his
shameful-and shameless-record.
The speech is interesting chiefly for
its outrageous abuse of truth. Fol
instance, we uote:
In the state of Georgia there
was undoubted general and wide
spread opposition on the part of
many thousands of its people to
the enactment of the draft law.
Numerous and largely attended
mass meetings held in every part
of the state protested against it.
That is untrue. Nothing like that
ever happened, and, furthermore, Sena-
tor Hardwick knows that no such con-
ditions ever prevailed in this state. He
knows that there was not any gen
eral and widespread opposition on the
part of many thousands 10 the en-
actment of the draft law He knows
too, that if there had been any such
opposition, it would have been engen-
dered almost solely by his own PERM
cious activity in opposition to the draft
act, at the time he was cooperating
heart-and-soul with Thomas E. Wat
son in this respect. 1t was Senator
Hardwisk who said, after the draft
act had been passed, in discussing his
violent opposition to it, so far from
regretting it, glory in it," Doubt
less those are still his sentiments.
For Senator Hardwick or any one
to say that opposition in Georgia to
the selectiye draft act was mot only
general but intense" is to grossly dis
tort the facts. Such slackerism as the
draft act may have exposed was found
mostly in those quarters where The
Jeffersonian had its largest circulation
and where the unpatriotic doctrines
preached by Senator Hardwick were
with the assistance of
Watson The files of the daily papers
for two months prior to June the fifth
sail to show that numerous and
largely attended mass meetings were
held in every part of the state" A
few meetings were called but mostly
they were fzzles, participated in al
most exclusively by the Watson and
Hardwick followers and subjected to
public ridicule, opprobrium and dis
pleasure nearly everywhere. Such a
meeting was called for Americas, for
instance, but its projectors did not ap-
pear on the scene. A general state
wide meeting, called by Watson and
diligently advertised by him, was a
puny affair, indeed, and it was made
more so by his failure to appear in
person, after he had announced that
he would be present. Not even Sena-
tor Hardwick had the courage to ap-
pear at this meeting. He sought safety
ty in the halls of Congress, where he
has the constitutional prerogative OF
saying what he pleases, without limita-
ton or question-and the additional
privilege, if he desires, of printing
what he did not say and sending
pamphlets broadcast at the govern
ment's expense. There has never beer
any general and widespread opposi
ton" to the draft act There were {
few sporadic protests manufactured b.
Watson and his Jeffersonian and en-
| couraged by Hardwick himself, whC
later had the audacity to admonish his
followers against disturbances of any